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Pioneers of Soutliern 
Literature. 



BY SAMUEL ALBERT LINK. 



VOLUME I. 



Nashville. Tenn. ; Dallas, Tex. : 

Publishing House, M. E. Church, South. 

BiGHAM & Smith, Agents, 

1903. 



1^ 



Copyright, 1899, 

BY 

Barbee & Smith, Agents. 



Contents. 

Page 

A Glance at the Field. Here a 
Tale; There a Song .... i 

Paul Hamilton Hayne, Poet Lau- 
reate OF THE South .... 43 

Dr. Frank O. Tichnor, the South- 
ern Lyric Poet; and Henry Tim- 
rod, THE Unfortunate Singer . 89 

William Gilmore Simms: The 
Novelist, the Poet .... 149 

John Pendleton Kennedy, John 
EsTEN Cooke, and Other South- 
ern Novelists 223 



H (Blance at tbc f iclD. 

Thus have I walkt a wayless way, with 

^uncouth pace, 
Which yet no Christian man did ever 

trace: 
But yet I know this not affects the mind, 
Which eares doth hearie: as that which 

eyes doe finde. 

THOSE words seem quaint 
enough to have been written 
in the days of Shakespeare, 
and so they were. Capt. John 
Smith had just completed a perilous 
voyage of discovery, before which 
the fabled adventures of Jason 
grew pale. In three months, with a 
few companions in an open boat, 
this last knight-errant of the world 
had explored the vast shores and 
inlets of the Chesapeake, with its 
tributary rivers. Not only that, 
but accurate maps with full descrip- 
tions of country, natives, plants, and 
A 1 



B Glance at tbe ficlt>. 

animals had been made. Nor was 
the record a bare statement of 
facts ; but the narrative is of poetic 
beauty and perennial freshness, 
and flows on lucid as the magnifi- 
cent rivers which flow into that 
wonderful bay. 

When Capt. John Smith's " Gen- 
erall Historic o f Virginia, New 
England, and the Summer Isles " 
appeared in London, in 1624, Vir- 
ginia had been the inspiration of a 
dozen or more books, several of 
which had been written on the 
banks of the James. Before the 
colony was two decades old, within 
its limits Sandys had completed the 
translation of twelve books of Ovid, 
done so well as to reach eight edi- 
tions in a short time, and to bring 
the translator high praise from both 
Dryden and Pope. In the midst of 
suffering from starvation and dan- 
ger from savages, five books had 
been written in the huts of James- 
town before five years had passed. 



n ©lance at tbe ^felD» 

Verily everything seemed to to- 
ken the advent of a new nativity for 
literature. In England this was an 
age of large thoughts and larger 
expectations. Every snowy sail 
rising above the curve of the sea 
might bear the news of more splen- 
did discoveries, or be freighted with 
richer treasures, than all the dreams 
of the Indies. The realities sur- 
passed the old romances. The 
Caliphate of Haroun-al-Raschid had 
been revived with increased splen- 
dor and extent. A new drama 
might fall from the pen of Shakes- 
peare any day, marked by that 
largeness of mind and universality 
of ideas in which he surpassed all 
who had gone before. 

In this age of Shakespeare and 
Ben Jonson, John Smith was mak- 
ing the beginning of a new litera- 
ture in the wilds of America; nor 
in shrewdness o f discernment,, 
quaintness of expression, and large- 
ness of view was that beginning in the 



a (3lancc at tbe fiM, 

least unworthy of the age and the En- 
gland to which the writer belonged. 

Moses Coit Tyler says : " The 
first lispings of American literature 
were heard along the sands of the 
the Chesapeake and near the gur- 
gling tides of the James River, at 
the very time when the firmament 
of English literature was all ablaze 
with the light of her full-orbed and 
most wonderful writers, the wits, 
the dramatists, scholars, orators, 
singers, philosophers, who formed 
that incomparable group of Titanic 
men gathered in London during the 
earlier years of the seventeenth cen- 
tury ; when the very air of London 
must have been electric with the 
daily words of those immortals, 
whose casual talk upon the pave- 
ment by the street side was a coin- 
age of speech richer, more virile, 
more expressive, than has been 
known on this planet since the great 
days of Athenian poetry, eloquence, 
and mirth." 

4 



i 



B Glance at tbe jfield. 

Raleigh, who more than any 
other man, gave North America to 
the English, had gone forth in al- 
most royal magnificence, to make 
conquests from Spain and to en- 
large discoveries in the new world, 
and had returned to use tongue and 
pen to foster colonization in Virgin- 
ia. His plan failed, his colony per- 
ished, and himself fell into disfavor, 
going finally to prison and, as one 
has said, to " damnable death," 
yet his dearest scheme was not des- 
tined finally to fail. Hakluyt, Gos- 
nold, Smith, and others arose to re- 
peat the venture under better aus- 
pices and in a more favorable Locality. 

Capt. John Smith, governor by 
divine right of leadership, like Sir 
Walter Raleigh, aspired to litera- 
ture as well as arms and coloniza- 
tion. Smith saw at once the possi- 
bility of a new and larger England, 
and at a subsequent time named a 
portion of the continent accordingly. 
Within a year he had given the 
5 



B 0lance at tbe 3fielD. 

world his " True Relation," though 
that is a small part of the title. In 
another year this man, whose inde- 
fatigable courage and untiring in- 
dustry is one of the wonders of a 
wonderful age, had made two dan- 
gerous voyages, in which were 
secured the information published 
in his " Mappe." 

The first writings of any country 
deal with exploits and discoveries. 
Cadmus brought letters to Greece, 
and straightway there is a history 
of his sowing the dragon's teeth, 
and the conflict of the armed men 
who sprang up in such bountiful 
profusion. 

In the oldest English poem 
known, " Widsith," the " Far Trav- 
eler," "told his tale, unlocked his 
word-hoard," and that far-away tale 
was of travel and sight-seeing. 
Naturally, the first writings of 
both Virginia and Massachusetts 
would be descriptive and historical ; 
on the one hand, portraying the 
G 



% Glance at tbe jfielD. 

country to those at home ; on the 
other, recording the hardships and 
dangers incident to the enterprise 
that those within the veil of the 
future might know how great the 
work to find the "gods a home in 
Latium," and build the "walls of 
high-towering Rome." 

Within a few months after writing 
the "True Relation" Smith sent a 
trenchant reply t o certain ' com- 
plaints from the London Company. 
Tyler calls the style of this " Hot- 
spur Rhetoric." It was an embryo 
declaration of independence, Amer- 
ica's first experience in talking back 
at England. He told them freely 
of their mistaken pohcy, and of the 
colony's need for men who would 
work ; but with these sober words 
was mingled hope for the future. 

The "Susan Constant," the 
" Godspeed," and the " Discovery," 
bearing the first settlers, had sailed 
up the James in April, when the 
dosfwoods and redbuds were re- 



B <3lance at tbe field. 

splendent, and numerous vines were 
festooned with blooms. Smith had 
written: "Heaven and earth never 
agreed better to frame a place for 
man's habitation." Here was the 
original Brother Jonathan, whose 
descriptions of his country glowed 
with the fervor of a Fourth of July, 
but whose retort to those who spoke 
him ill was not a mere mincing of 
phrases. 

To Smith belongs the honor of 
giving the name to New England, 
and even to Plymouth, where the pil- 
grims landed. While he published 
several works, most of them were 
written in London, and hence do 
not strictly belong to America, 
though almost all glowed with one 
theme : Virginia. 

Larger space has been given to 
Smith, since he, more than any 
other, with seerlike vision and hap- 
py discernment of right means, laid 
the foundation of American litera- 
ture and American greatness. 
8 



B (3lance at tbe jfielO. 

In 1610 William Strachey wrote 
his vivid description of a storm and 
wreck among the Bermudas, which 
has been supposed to have suggest- 
ed the " Tempest " to Shakespeare. 

Among others who wrote in 
those first years, were George Per- 
cy, the brilliant John Pory, Alexan- 
der Whitaker, with his " Good 
News from Virginia," besides 
George Sandys, and his translations 
of Ovid mentioned before. 

Such was the auspicious begin- 
ning, but it was not to continue. 
As the people became more firmly 
fixed in their new home the desire 
to communicate with the old world 
grew less. The dangers and hard- 
ships engrossed their attention more 
fully as they grew to realize more 
of the vast magnitude of the enter- 
prise. Years spent in fighting In- 
dians, clearing land, and building 
homes damped the early literary ar- 
dor. 

In New England there were so 
1* 9 



B (Blancc at tbc ^(elO, 

many diversities of religious belief 
that in the vain endeavor to settle 
these many books were written at 
quite an early date, but it was a 
long time before any real literature 
appeared. Although a printing 
press had been set up at Harvard in 
1639, from which many volumes 
had been issued, yet no work of 
even lighter theology was issued 
until 1662, when the "Day of 
Doom," a book of verse, appeared. 

During the first hundred years 
New England produced " Mother 
Goose's Melodies," a few histories 
and books of statecraft, with in- 
numerable works on various phases 
of duty and theology, with here and 
there a stray poem — a few humor- 
ous. 

Through the instrumentality of 
James Blair the foundation of Wil- 
liam and Mary College was laid at 
Williamsburg, in Virginia, in 1693. 
By his work of half a century as 
President, much v/as done to give 
10 



21 Glance at the ^ielD, 

intellectual force to the people — to 
prepare for that preeminence which 
Virginia took during the Revolu- 
tion and the first quarter of century 
of the government. 

Harvard and William and Mary 
were the two centers from which 
were shaped the leaders of the Rev- 
olution. 

It takes towns and cities to foster 
literature. New England had these 
earlier than the South, Virginia was 
especially unfortunate in that direc- 
tion. Jamestown perished, Wil- 
liamsburg never grew, Richmond 
did not attain much size until long 
after Northern cities had become 
centers of books and intelligence. 

If Jamestown had been located at 
the falls of the James instead of 
upon a low malarial peninsula, how 
different might have been the litera- 
ry history of the South ! An author 
may dwell apart at " Abbotsford " or 
" Rydal Mount," but his works need 
to be issued from some center of 
11 



B eiance at tbe f ielO. 



population and literature. Indeed, 
most successful literary workers 
must at times feel the heart beat of 
the world. 

Harvard, with its printing press, 
was at Boston, but the South lo- 
cated her colleges in the small 
towns, and thus kept many of her 
most scholarly men away from the 
people and the press. Moreover, in 
the old regime at the South, the 
forum was more attractive to intel- 
lectual men than the Aonion mount. 
There was many an Achilles in 
courage, but no Homer sang his 
feats in arms. 

In New England the people set- 
tled in towns, and lectures and libra- 
ries w^ere in vogue almost from the 
beginning, but in the South the 
farm was the center of social life. 
Culture and wit there were, but 
these shone in the homes, not in 
books. 

Before the war of 1861 many 
planters had fine libraries, but often 
12 



B Glance at tbc ficl^. 

these contained nothing more re- 
cent than the Elizabethan poets 
and the Waverley novels ; and woe 
betide the writer who fell below 
these. A literature must come full 
fledged ; it dare not show the crude- 
ness of a beginning. There was 
no city so superior to others as to 
constitute a center of culture and 
learning for the entire South. Bal- 
timore, Richmond, Charleston, Lou- 
isville, New Orleans, and a few 
other points were local centers, but 
from none of these could there em- 
anate a review which would be ac- 
cepted by the others as an authori- 
tative canon of criticism. Whole- 
some criticism is necessary to lift 
literature above the passions and fol- 
lies of the passing hour. For lack 
of this, amateur writers of poor 
ability reveled in praise generous 
enough for genius — praise given by 
incompetent friends through the col- 
umns of local newspapers. No 
higher praise could be given the 
13 



21 ©lance at tbc 3ftclD. 

best, hence all came to be classed 
together, and few of the brightest 
intellects were willing to acknowl- 
edge a deliberate literary int-ent. 
Some of the brightest gems of 
thought were given in conversation 
and private letters. There were no 
Southern publishers, and the proud- 
spirited Southerner asked no favors 
with a chance of being denied, hence 
the North received few offers of 
Southern manuscript. Broad and 
genial humor has always been 
a Southern characteristic. Mark 
Twain was born in Missouri of 
Kentucky parents, but long before 
his day Col. William Byrd, of 
Westover, Va., had shov/n a raci- 
ness which would set modern ears 
atingle. His diary, kept when he 
ran the dividing line between North 
Carolina and Virginia, was left un- 
published a hundred years, but was 
published in 1 841, and is now spoken 
of as one of the most remarkable pro- 
ductions of early American writers, 
14 



B (5lance at tbe 3FiclD. 

and will keep his name alive when 
it has been forgotten that he found- 
ed Richmond and Petersburg. 

Sometimes humorous productions 
spring up where there is a dearth of 
all other literature. No theory of 
the origin and growth of literature 
can be produced which will not be 
set at naught by the advent of some 
genius at some point barren of ex- 
pectations. The first book printed 
west of the Alleghanies was issued 
at Pittsburg in 1793. The author 
was H. H. Brackenridge, born in 
Scotland, but brought up on the 
border of Maryland, in which State 
he taught school for a number of 
years. He afterwards went to Pitts- 
burg, and at first edited the United 
States Afagazine^ but subsequently 
practiced law. His book circulated 
mainly in the South and West, and 
" filled the place of ' Don Quixote ' on 
the banks of the Ohio and along 
the Mississippi." This racy book 
was written in good English, and 
15 



B Glance at tbe ^ielO. 

told of the adventures of a militia 
captain and his raw Irish servant as 
they rode about the country. Capt. 
Farrago found his servant so popular 
as to be restrained with difficulty 
from becoming a clergyman, an In- 
dian chief, a member of the Legisla- 
ture, of the philosophical society, and 
of Congress. This red-headed San- 
cho Panza was appointed exciseman, 
and at once lost his popularity, and 
was tarred and feathered before he 
could begin to collect taxes on the 
products of the still. Most of the 
writings of a literary turn were done 
by men busy v^ith other things — es- 
pecially lawyers. One case is nota- 
ble, since the lawyer did not even 
acknowledge his fugitive verse un- 
til others had laid claim to it, and he 
was urged by friends to avow its 
authorship. This was Richard Hen- 
ry Wilde, member of Congress from 
Georgia for several years, begin- 
ning in 1815. The poem is here 
given, and is entitled 
16 



B (3lance at tbc 3PielO» 

My Life Is Like the Summer Rose. 

My life is like the summer i-ose, 

That opens to the morning sky, 
But ere the shades of evening close 

Is scattered on the ground — to die! 
Yet on the rose's humble bed, 
The sweetest dews of night are shed, 
As if she wept the waste to see — 
But none shall weep a tear for me! 

My life is like the autumn leaf, 

That trembles in the moon's pale ray ; 
Its hold is frail, its date is brief, 

Restless, and soon to pass away! 
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade. 
The parent tree will mourn its shade; 
The winds bewail the leafless tree. 
But none shall breathe a sigh for me. 

My life is like the prints which feet 

Have left on Tampa's desert strand; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 

All trace will vanish from the sand; 
Yet, as if grieving to efface 
All vestige of the human race, 
On that lone shore loud moans the sea; 
But none, alas! shall mourn for me! 

Wilde was the author of a num- 
ber of works, but this poem, which 
had a wide circulation, is about all 
1** B 17 



a ©lance at tbc 3Piel&. 

that remains. Before the war very- 
few persons in America had ever 
relied solely on literature as a means 
of support. As the wheels of the 
train sometimes throw off sparks 
while bearing the heavy burdens of 
trade, so busy men sometimes threw 
off poems and sketches of more than 
ordinary merit. It might as well 
be confessed that literature did not 
present the road to highest honor. 
That was for the statesman. Nor 
was the example of such as tempt- 
ed the Muses very enticing. One 
fee of an attorney might easily 
mean more than a year's work in 
literature, since Poe received five 
hundred and fifty dollars per year 
as editor in his best days, and ob- 
tained ten dollars for the " Raven," 
one of the world's famous poems. 
But after all, literary appreciation in 
a solid sense is a very modern affair. 
Shakespeare did not find it worth 
while to publish, and Milton sold 
" Paradise Lost " for five pounds. 
18 



a (5lancc at tbe jficlO* 

Lest we of the South should be 
censured more than others, be it re- 
membered that Charles Brockden 
Brown, the prototype of both Poe 
and Hawthorne, died at Philadel- 
phia in iSio, at the age of thirty- 
nine, utterly broken with discour- 
agement, because of lack of inter- 
est on the part of his nation, and 
also that Hawthorne himself, one of 
the world's five greatest novelists, 
was under necessity of sitting at 
the door of politics and eating the 
bread of neglect. When James 
Fenlmore Cooper published his first 
novel, he withheld his name, and 
wrote " Precaution : by an English- 
man." 

The South in higher circles had 
some of the spirit of feudal En- 
gland. Neither thought of free 
common schools patronized by all 
the people. Culture was not lack- 
ing in the South. Franklin started 
his Magazine for All the British 
Plantations in America in 1741. 
19 



21 (3lance at tbe ficlt>. 

He was obliged to confess that the 
Virginian planters were already pro- 
vided since the Gentle7nan''s Mag- 
azine^ the oldest in England, had 
been founded in London ten years 
earlier. Henry Adams in his his- 
tory of the United States during 
the administration of Jefferson, says : 
" The Virginians, at the close of 
the eighteenth century, were infe- 
rior to no class of Americans in the 
sort of education then supposed to 
make refinement." He might have 
said the same of several portions of 
the South. The deficiency in edu- 
cation was in regard to extent, not 
degree. So many young men went 
to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and 
England for education, that Jeffer- 
son was constrained to found the 
University of Virginia. The basis 
of intelligence could not have been 
bad that produced such men as 
Washington, Jefferson, John Mar- 
shall, George Mason, Andrew Jack- 
son, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, 
20 



B ©lance at tbe ificlD. 



Thomas Benton, William Wirt, and 
all those bright stars which have 
made luminous the Southern skies. 
Wherein could these men have 
failed had they found in literature 
their fitting field? According to 
Moses Coit Tyler, to Patrick Hen- 
ry belongs the honor of sounding 
the first effective note for freedom 
which incited to action and unified 
all the colonies. Of political writ- 
ing, Hon. J. Q. Adams says : "What 
could America offer in legal litera- 
ture that rivaled the judicial opin- 
ions of Chief Justice Marshall? 
What political essay equaled the 
severe beauty of George Mason's 
Virginia Bill of Rights? What 
single production of an American 
pen reached the fame of Thomas 
Jefferson's Declaration of Independ- 
ence?" To this it might be added 
that Southern statesmanship wrote 
the constitution, ceded to the Feder- 
al Government the territory of Vir- 
ginia out of which so many States 
1*** 21 



B (Blance at tbe yielD. 

were carved, secured Louisiana, 
thus preventing a vast French, or 
more probably British, Empire west 
of the Mississippi. Southern skill 
directed all the land fighting Amer- 
icans care to remember of the war of 
1 812, and mainly Southern soldiers 
stormed the bristling heights of 
Mexico. The same region whose 
intellect has been spoken of as fet- 
tered, in the late war furnished sol- 
diers and generals whose fame will 
require all chapters of earth's hero- 
ism to be rewritten. It must not 
be forgotten that many of those 
most prominent on the Northern 
side, including Lincoln himself, 
were from the South. To show 
that the South was intellectually up 
and about on various lines, it is only 
necessary to mention Audubon, the 
prince of ornithologists ; Maury, 
who marked out the highways and 
byways of the seas, discovered the 
Atlantic Plateau for the cable, and 
first proposed the Weather Bureau. 



a (Stance at tbe ^icl^. 

In addition to these, Washington 
Allston, the poet-painter, must not 
be forgotten, nor must J. Marion 
Sims, the great surgeon, who 
pioneered the way in so many in- 
ventions and discoveries. The 
South, then, largely gave to the 
world, and for more than a quarter 
of a century directed, a system of 
government which has largely mod- 
ified the governments of earth, 
which has given to mankind a new 
value of man. 

If the North came with arms 
preaching "All men are created 
equal," remember the South first 
taught this creed. In the forma- 
tive period of the government there 
was produced by Southern men the 
finest body of political writings the 
world ever saw. This filled the de- 
mands — indeed, the necessities — of 
the times. Had those men at that 
time turned their talents to fiction 
or poetry, they would have belittled 
themselves in the eyes of miankind. 
23 



B Glance at tbe ^ielD. 

They did not write history ; they 
made history. Not only were they 
the actors of the ages, but they 
were the philosophers of humanity. 
Their works can never be forgot- 
ten by the political economist until 
the ages end or self-government is 
forgotten. Oratory belongs to a 
free people, and the history of 
Southern oratory is the history of 
one of the most splendid periods of 
the world's history. 

We cannot but wish that, while 
there was such activity on other lines, 
some writers should have given in 
song and story the phases of life as 
they passed ; but this much has been 
written to show that this dearth did 
not come from lack of intellectual 
force. When the war brought to- 
gether an audience, the singer burst 
into song ; when oratory ceased to 
have a mission, the romancer came, 
showing the adaptability of the peo- 
ple to varied demands. 

A few things should be remem- 
24 



B (glan ce at tb e iPiclD. 

bered by those who make literature 
not merely the chief, but the only 
adequate measure of intellectual 
greatness. The few short stories 
recently produced by sprightly 
writers do not discredit what has 
gone before. We think of these 
stories, not so much on account of 
their merit, as the hope and promise 
they give for the future — that the 
South may equal or surpass in liter- 
ature what she has done in state- 
craft, war, social culture, and bril- 
liant, but evanescent, oratory. All 
this past has been glanced at to 
show that there is an historical basis 
for such expectation. A few things 
done when literature was hardly a 
pastime gives token and prophecy 
of a great future, if only we build 
well. 

A few efforts were made from 
time to time to establish magazines 
which might in some measure draw 
the best intellect toward literary 
production. These failed not from 
25 



B (Blance at tbe ficlt>. 

lack of intellect to be drawn, but 
from lack of drawing power, mon- 
ey, influence. A liberal price per 
column would soon have worked 
wonders. 

Of these magazines, the South- 
ern Literary Messe7iger^ at Rich- 
mond, was, no doubt, the best, and 
lasted longest. From the days of 
Kennedy and Poe until the war it 
drew to itself the best talent of the 
South and some of the North. 
Among its contributors may be 
found the names of such as Cooke, 
Simms, Hayne, Timrod, Bagby, 
John R. Thompson, James Barron 
Hope, and a long list besides. Bag- 
by and Thompson were both editors. 
Poe made the Messenger^ and the 
Messenger made Poe. Charleston 
came next with Legare's Review 
and Hayne's RusselVs Afagazine, 
Both of these did much to make 
Charleston " the Boston of the 
South," which it was once called. 
The Revietv ran for years, and some 
26 



B Olancc at tbe 3ficlD, 

one has said that its editor, Legare, 
just missed being great. Debow 
at New Orleans, Tannehill, and Al- 
bert Roberts at Nashville, attempt- 
ed publications in a somewhat sim- 
ilar vein. The Ho^ne Circle and 
the L,adies* Pearl were Church ef- 
forts to give a literary bent to their 
people. Later, D. H. Hill in North 
Carolina, Basil Duke in Louisville, 
and some one else in Baltimore, made 
like efforts to awake what was sup- 
posed to be a dormant interest. 
These were all pioneer ventures 
upon a water without wind. They 
did not supply a long-felt ivant. 

Some papers fostered literature — 
notably the Louisville Jotirnal^ in 
charge of George D. Prentice, him- 
self a poet of no mean degree. 
Collins's " Kentucky " gives selec- 
tions from Amelia Welby, Theodore 
O'Hara, and a score of other poets 
largely called into being by Pren- 
tice. Of these, O'Hara is likely to 
be immortal, since, though a South- 
27 



a ©lance at tbc ficlt), 

em soldier, some of his lines from 
" Bivouac of the Dead," stand over 
the gate of the National Cemetery 
at Arlington. 

A great deal of what vv^as written 
in earlier years at New Orleans has 
never come to general view, since 
French was the language employed. 
An examination of Fortier's 
" Louisiana Studies " will surprise 
one in the amount of fairly good 
work done in that State, not to men- 
tion Gayarre's " Histories," which 
must continue to be of increasing 
value as interest increases in the his- 
tory of the Mississippi Valley. 

This booklet cannot be a cata- 
logue o f Southern writers, for 
James .Wood Davidson numbered 
the hosts in 1869, and found in the 
South two hundred and forty-one 
living writers — one hundred and 
sixty male, seventy-five female — 
though Ida Raymond found one 
hundred and seventy-six women. 
Of those, two hundred and one had 
28 



B (Blance at tbe jficlD. 

published books. Where are the 
books? is the question. They had 
written seven hundred and thirty- 
nine volumes. Books are not litera- 
ture. 

Baltimore has been the home of 
two unfortunate, but genuine, poets. 
The first in point of time was Ed 
ward Coate Pinkney, born in 1802, 
died in 1828. Dying young, he yet 
left some good poetry. His best- 
known poem, "A Health," has this 
for a closing stanza : 

I fill this cup to one made up 

Of loveliness alone, 
A woman of her gentle sex 

The seeming paragon — 
Her health! and would on earth 
there stood 

Some more of such a frame, 
That life might be all poetry, 

And weariness a naqie. 

His poetry was published in 1825 
in a thin volume of sixty pages. It 
attracted attention at once, and he 
was rated one of the five best poets 
in America. The "Picture Song" 
29 



S ©lance at tbc ^ielD. 

is perhaps the best, but is too long 
to quote. Does Peck give three 
quarters of a century later a better 

Serenade? 
Look out upon the stars, my love, 

And shame them with thine eyes, 
On which, than on the lights above 

There hang more destinies. 
Night's beauty is the harmony 

Of blending shades and light; 
Then, lady, up, look out and be 

A sister to the night! 
Sleep not! thine image wakes for aye 

Within my watching breast; 
Sleep not! from her soft sleep should flee, 

Who robs all hearts of rest. 
Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, 

And make this darkness gay 
With looks whose brightness well might 
make 

Of darker nights a day. 

Several of the family have been 
authors and published both prose 
and verse. They took to literature 
as the South Carolina Pinckneys 
[a different name] took to law, ora- 
tory, and diplomacy. 

A roll call of Southern poets 
SO 



21 (3lance at the JielD. 

would not omit Wilde, the law-pro- 
fessor and poet; Mirabeau B. La- 
mar, President of the Lone Star Re- 
public, author of the " Daughter of 
Mendoza ; " Simms, the poet-nov- 
elist; Poe, the "unlucky master 
whom disaster followed fast, and 
followed faster ; " Judge A. B. 
Meek, whose ermine could not al- 
together frighten the Muses ; Pren- 
tice, the poet-editor; St. George 
Tucker, the jurist, who wrote 
" Days of My Youth ; " Francis 
Scott Key, the immortal author of 
" Star - spangled Banner ; " Henry 
R. Jackson, and "The Red Old 
Hills of Georgia;" Albert Pike, 
with his " Mocking Bird " and 
"Hymns to the Gods;" O'Hara, 
and the " Bivouac of the Dead ; " 
John R. Thompson, the poet whose 
portrait hangs among the states- 
men of the Old Dominion ; Father 
Ryan, whose " Requiem " will nev- 
er die until forgotten lies the banner 
" which four years made immortal ; " 
31 



B (3lance at tbe ^ielD. 

Timrod, whose story is the most 
pathetic in all literature ; Ticknor, 
the poet-physician, who made " Lit- 
tle Griffin " imperishable ; Paul H. 
Hayne, who lifted high the torch of 
leadership when the days seemed 
too dark for song. Nor could we 
omit that long list whose bugles 
caught the notes of war and thrilled 
them over a palpitating land ; Ran- 
dal, Timrod, Flash, Ticknor, and a 
host of others who have woven 
their names in threads of fire. 
Lanier belongs to both the old and 
new period in the South's literary 
development, but mainly to the 
new. 

The novel has been of late growth 
in American literature. The short 
story of recent years has taken the 
place of the three-volume English 
novel, though it has been hinted that 
this is only an interregnum of that 
ponderous production. Cooper has 
been extensively read, but never 
reached the high-water mark of ex- 
32 



H ©lance at the ficW, 

cellence. Washington Irving was 
not, strictly speaking, a novelist. 
Hawthorne's fame unfortunately 
did not spread as rapidly as his abil- 
ity warranted. Some one has said 
that the best novel written in the 
South before the war was " Vir- 
ginia Comedians," by John Esten 
Cooke. Be that true or not, Cooke 
did far better work after those fiery 
campaigns in which he took part. 
He was preeminently the war nov- 
elist of the South, and not all of 
his works w^ill perish. Carruthers 
wrote with an historical basis, hencfe 
his works at least have interest fpr 
the student. 

The " Cavaliers " has to do with 
Bacon's Rebellion, and the 
" Knights of the Horseshoe " gives a 
picture of the " Cocked Hat Gen- 
try," with a description of Spots- 
wood's explorations beyond the 
Blue Ridge. Dr. Carruthers wrote 
other novels, but the business did 
not pay, and he went farther south 
3 S3 



B Glance at tbc 3fielD. 

and practiced medicine. Hardly 
any works give a better picture of 
colonial days. Cooke was his natu- 
ral successor, as Page has succeeded 
Cooke, each happily improving upon 
his predecessor. 

However, the Tuckers of Virgin- 
ia must not be forgotten. There 
were several, and men of strong 
ability at that. St. George Tucker, 
the stepfather of John Randolph, 
was poet and satirist, as well as law 
commentator ; but George Tucker, 
a relative, likewise a lawyer, was 
the author of the novels " Valley of 
the Shenandoah " and "A Voyage 
to the Moon," besides numerous 
other vvrorks, some twenty in all. 
Beverly Tucker, son of St. George, 
and half-brother of John Randolph 
of Roanoke, was the author of 
" The Partisan Leader," which 
made quite a stir in its day ; he also 
wrote " Holcombe," a novel, besides 
several other w^orks. St. George 
H., grandson of St. George, was 



B 6lance at tbe jfielD. 

the author of " Hansford," an his- 
torical novel of the time of Bacon's 
Rebellion. J. P. Kennedy turned 
aside from law and politics long 
enough to write " Swallow Barn," 
" Horseshoe Robinson," " Rob of 
the Bowl," besides the " Life of 
Wirt," and many other things of 
less import. By Kennedy's influ- 
ence Poe became editor of the South- 
ern Literary Messenger , 

William Gilmore Simms, of South 
Carolina, was the Cooper of the 
v^outh ; not only that, but he was 
the Maecenas to the younger writ- 
ers of his day. Hayne, Timrod, 
and others, often met at his house 
to find encouragement and catch in- 
spiration. At " Woodlands," near 
Charleston, he kept open house. 
Bryant and literary men from a dis- 
tance visited him often. Richard- 
son, in his "American Literature,''' 
says : " Simms was poet, dramatist, 
Shakespearian editor, essayist, aph- 
oristic philosopher, historian, biog- 



21 (3lance at tbe ^\M. 

rapher, lecturer, commemorative or- 
ator, legislator, proslavery apolo- 
gist, journalist, magazinist, critic, 
and, above all, novelist." He began 
as poet, and published several vol- 
umes of verse. Although bright 
flashes abound in his poetry, yet it 
is marred by evidences of haste and 
crudeness. He v^ill be remembered 
by his novels, of which he wrote a 
great many. These are largely 
tales with an historical background, 
the partisan warfare in the Caroli- 
iias in revolutionary times furnish- 
ing a fine field for such writings. 
What Cooper and John Esten 
Cooke did for their sections, Simms 
in a fuller measure did for the 
South. The historian cannot afford 
to ignore his pictures of Marion, 
Sumter, Gates, and other Ameri- 
can officers who operated in the 
South, as well as his description of 
British officers and Tories. The 
war which stirred so many South- 
ern writers, especially poets, into 
36 



B ©lance at tbc jficlO. 

activity, seemed to daze Simms. 
The tragedy was too real. The 
close found him in extreme poverty, 
his home and library destroyed. 
For the sake of his children he un- 
dertook heavy contracts for his pen, 
and overwork hastened the end, 
which came in 1S70. Self -conse- 
crated to letters when literature was 
not in large vogue, his life may be 
expressed in his sonnet, " Man- 
hood." 

I know that I must struggle, and I know 
That sorrow in that struggle must be 

mine, 
And with denial I must chafe and 
pine! 
My nature and the world decree it so! 
But shall I from the progress backward 

go? 
My hand upon the plowshare, shall mj 
heart 
Shrink from the toil because the toil 
be great, 
And there are those who, striving, cry, 
"Depart! 
Lest you provoke our ridicule and 
hate!" 

37 



21 Glance at tbe JfielD. 

This were to fight with fortune against 
fate; 
A harder conflict than to struggle on, 
Still falling, and arising but to fall, 
But still to rise and struggle, firm 
through all, 
Growing stronger with each foot of prog- 
ress won! 

For grace and beauty of style 
William Wirt, of Virginia, has sel- 
dom been excelled. Although he 
scarcely for a moment turned aside 
from law and politics, and was one 
of the most delightful conversation- 
alists of the nation, yet his writing 
is far beyond that of an amateur, 
both in matter and cultured finish. 
His "Letters of a British Spy " con- 
tain the famous description of the 
blind preacher. Rev. James Wad- 
dell. Wirt's " Life of Patrick Hen- 
ry," and Kennedy's « Life of Wirt," 
are both admirable pieces of biog- 
raphy. Chief Justice Marshall's 
" Life of Washington " can never 
be entirely superseded. A number 
of excellent biographies have been 
38 



B ©lance at tbe 3fielD, 



produced by Southern hands, but 
since the war this work has been 
commited, in the main, to Northern 
pens. The field of biography and 
history is ripe unto the harvest for 
our own rising young writers, not 
that there is any prejudice of sec- 
tions in this view of the case, but 
the work lies at our door, and we 
ought by this time to have judicial 
fairness as well as sympathetic in- 
terest enough to do the work. 

Not only did Edgar A. Poe write 
many strange, weird tales of won- 
derful power, but in some respects 
he was the greatest poet America 
has produced. His lasting benefit 
to American literature was that he 
lifted literary criticism above the 
plane of paltry praise or petty fault- 
finding, and gave it position and 
principles. The controversy which 
his life and work excited is no small 
portion of literature. 

It has been claimed that even in 
the darkest days of the Confederacy 
39 



B <3lance at the ^icl^. 

humor was still a product of the 
Southern camp. Reminiscences of 
lawyers, who practiced on the " Cir- 
cuits " abound in racy anecdotes 
which were told from town to town. 
Even staid clergymen were accus- 
tomed to unbend at times and regale 
brother ministers with incidents 
told with a decidedly humorous 
turn. Henry Watterson says : '' In 
the more elaborate stories of the au- 
thor of ' Dukesborough Tales,' and 
in the delicious fables of ' Uncle Re- 
mus,' we discover not merely marked 
progress in literary handicraft, but 
a total absence of the merely local 
tone w^hich abounds in the writ- 
ing of Longstreet, Harris, Thomp- 
son, and Hooper." It is that " local 
tone" which makes valuable the 
realistic character sketches of those 
old days of logrollings, cornshuck- 
ings, militia musters, political bar- 
becues, camp meetings, and county 
courts. Judge Longstreet's " Geor- 
gia Scenes," J. H. Hooper's " Si- 
40 



% (Blance at tbc flclb* 

mon Suggs," Judge Baldwin's 
" Flush Times," Col. W. T. Thomp- 
son's " Major Jones," might have 
been bona Jide personages, so true 
to time and place were they. Da- 
vid Crockett could hardly have 
lived, acted, and written under other 
circumstances. The humor of those 
characters was not a made up affair, 
but just bubbled right out of the 
earth. Coarse though it was, George 
W. Harris, of East Tennessee, cre- 
ator of " Sut Luvingood," had much 
native "mother wit." George W. 
Bagby's "Mozis Addums," was a 
bright example of the cultured, 
genial humorist who wrote sense as 
well as fun. Prentice set the ex- 
ample, and many newspapers had a 
department in which biting things 
Vv'ere said, things which sometimes 
called for "pistols and coffee," but 
more often " turned the laugh on 
the other fellow." 

Those days have gone, but our 
living writers prove that not yet 
41 



B (Blance at tbe 3fiel&» 

has gone the ability to see the in- 
congruous, the ridiculous, the real- 
ity of things about them, and to 
build of these genial creations which 
shall continue to open the well- 
springs of joyousness and whole- 
some mirth. In this hasty glance 
at the field " the half has not been 
told " of what has been done by 
faithful, self-denying men and wom- 
en, many of whose works are too 
good to be allowed to perish utter- 
ly, and whose struggles are a part 
of the history of the loftiest endeav- 
or of a people surrounded by cir- 
cumstances at once unique and pe- 
culiar. If a country must have 
* * r u i n s " and " wrecks " and 
" graves " and memories of brave 
deeds — a history, before it can have 
a literature, then the southern por- 
tion of the United States is ready 
for a newer and grander era in lit- 
erary development. 
42 



Paul Ibamilton "toa^ne. 

ALEXANDER BROME 
said : 
A poet's life dependeth still, 
Not on the poet's wit, but reader's will. 

Sometime since Sara Orne Jew- 
ett published in the Century a story 
entitled, "All My Sad Captains." 
One could hardly forbear reading 
the story to see why the captains 
were sad. If the South should 
ever again forget the rush for ma- 
terial advancement long enough to 
give a thought to highest things of 
culture, she might designate her 
poets, "All My Sad Singers." The 
sadness comes from neglect. As a 
people we have neither honored our 
singers nor treasured their songs ; 
not only that, we have not sought 
to know if their songs had power 
to charm our ears, or inspire our 
43 



Paul fbamilton Ibai^ne. 

lives. Thomas Nelson Page says : 
" The harpers were present at the 
feast, but no one called for the 
song." In this matter no severer 
charge should lie against the South 
than belongs to the world in all 
time. 

Seven cities honored Homer dead, 
Through which he living begged his 
bread. 

Possibly the request was often 
made in vain. This trait of human- 
ity has been forcibly expressed in a 
beautiful poem by one of our own 
singers, George Washington Cole- 
man, in 

The Passing of the Singer. 
He came alone, the pale singer, 

'Long the dusty road to the town ; 
His feet were worn and his heart was 
torn, 
His eyes were wide and brown. 

He paused in the street of the city, 

And hope sprang up amain; 
To the surging throng that hurried 
along, 
He sang a plaintive strain. 
44 



Paul Damilton Ibaigne* 

But some had to buy in the market, 
And others to sell in the shop, 

And many to play, and a few to pray, 
And none had time to stop. 

So they did not hear the music, 

They did not turn to look, 
Save a woman worn, a lover lorn. 

And a student over his book. 

He went alone, the pale singer, 

'Long the dusty road from the town; 

His cheeks were thin, and tears stood in 
His eyes so wide and brown. 

When the sunset gates were opened. 
And the western skies aflame, 

From over the hill to the city still 
A magical music came. 

Men cried, "Do you hear the music?" 
They were resting after the day. 

"That singer sweet to our city street 
Shall come and dwell for aye ! " 

Far over the land they sought him. 
Sought till the night grew late ; 

But the weary feet of the singer sweet 
Had passed the sunset gate. 

With us this fate has been not 
only to the singer, but to other na- 
tive writers as well. In Canada 
45 



Paul f)amilton 't)aisne. 

Miss Murfree's work has been suf- 
ficiently appreciated to call for an 
edition of " In the Tennessee Moun- 
tains," and the sale has been greater 
possibly than in the capital of her 
own State. Lanier found his au- 
dience in the North. It is time for 
us to consider these things a re- 
proach. For lack of healthy criti- 
cism a great deal of trash — bombas- 
tic extravaganza — has been offered 
the South in the name of literature. 
But some very good works have 
been offered and died with part of a 
small first edition upon the publish- 
ers' shelves. Not many could be 
expected to enter the field of litera- 
ture under such conditions. Some 
who flirted with the Muses felt con- 
strained to do so under fictitious 
names. 

We owe perpetual honor to such 
as have caught in some measure the 
rich glow of the skies, the luxuri- 
ant fragrance and sensuous music 
rife in the semitropical air, togeth- 
4G 



Paul f)amilton l^ai^ne* 

er with touches of the spirit of a 
people ever generous and brave, 
and have sought to trace these im- 
pressions upon an imperishable can- 
vas. Among these none labored 
with more unfaltering trust and 
loftier aim or had broader sympa- 
thies and truer love for his people 
than the subject of this sketch. 
We lack an adequate history of the 
life and works of Paul Hamilton 
Hayne. In fact, his works have 
not been collected. In 1882 D. 
Lothrop & Co. brought out an ex- 
pensive volume of his poems, which 
is out of reach of many who might 
otherwise give some attention to 
one whose poems well repay study. 
Moreover, some of his very best 
poems w^ere written after the publica- 
tion of that volume. His prose works, 
some of which are idyllic in beauty, 
have not been collected in any form. 
These things ought not to be, since 
his works are part of the heritage, 
the treasure, and the heroism of a 
47 



Paul Damtlton Dagne. 

people. In his prose more than in 
his poety he touches the transient 
and current, sometimes impaling 
follies with a sharp pen, at other 
times with the touch of a painter 
turning out sketches of persons and 
places aglow with life and dramatic 
power — sketches which shall ever 
be of increasing interest to the his- 
torian as well as to the lover of the 
beautiful. 

The history of American litera- 
ture, to be complete, must omit 
none of the prominent factors which 
make up the full result. Not even 
the exigency of a war should be 
sufficient to cause the suppression 
of anything entitled to be known. 
The necessity for such utterance is 
easily felt after an examination of 
many of the professedly full " man- 
uals." However, it is gratifying to 
note that each succeeding contribu- 
tion to the history of authorship 
supplies some of the deficiencies of 
its predecessors. This gives hope 
48 



Paul Ibamtlton Iba^nc* 

that the greater part of the names 
about which we of the South are 
jealous will finally be accorded their 
proper meed of praise. Perhaps 
the day is not just yet at hand when 
the South will search for poetry in 
the " Biglow Papers " of Lowell, 
or the North appreciate the fervor 
of Timrod's " Cry to Arms," but 
the hand of a master must come to 
be recognized, no matter where the 
touches may have been applied. 
Any literature which has a local 
coloring must to that extent be sec- 
tional. Our country is so large and 
the points of view so varied that it 
cannot be considered a fault if one 
should make a microscopic study of 
some specific portion. By the dic- 
tum of Horace, a painter is forbid- 
den the incongruity of painting the 
head of a human being to the neck 
of a horse and the body of a fish ; 
so he should not attempt the im- 
possibility of representing on his 
canvas in a single view the Puritan, 
4 D 49 



I>aul l)amiUon f)asne, 

the Cavalier, and the stirring deni- 
zen of the West with a background 
of granite hills, billowy wheat 
fields, and wide tracts of snowy- 
cotton. The picture, to be perfect, 
must be made up of many partial 
views rightly joined together. An 
examination of the general picture 
of America, as shown by its litera- 
ture, and especially its poetry, shows 
no mean portion to have received 
Its coloring at the artist hand of 
Paul H. Hayne, the grace of whose 
work does not suffer by comparison 
with that of his contemporaries. 

" Poet laureate of the South ! " 
Yes, that title by divine right be- 
longs to Hayne. If the earliest and 
most constant loyalty to the Muse, a 
steady flame of poetic fervor, and 
the production of the largest amount 
of good poetry be the test, then the 
honor of that uncrowned preemi- 
nence goes easily to the poet of 
"Copse Hill." He was a poet in every 
high and true sense. In his works 
50 



Paul Damilton Ibaijne, 

the word-music of Tennyson unites 
with the love for nature of Keats 
and Wordsworth. His compass 
may not have been as great as that of 
some, but his sweetness was of tiie 
song of birds and the South winds 
laden with the perfume of flowers. 
If he rarely reached "L'Allegro," 
neither did his mood linger at " II 
Penseroso." His soul, unlike By- 
ron's and Poe's, may not have been 
a dark sea where brooded and broke 
forth fierce tempests of passion ; he 
may not have been " dowered with 
the hate of hate or the scorn of 
scorn," but he surely did have the 
" love of love." He lingered be- 
tween the extremes of the diapason, 
but tender indeed and rich are the 
melodies which he finds there. The 
environments of a poet are supposed 
to affect his song, hence the desire to- 
visit his secret haunts and surprise 
him in his home. The facts of 
Hayne's life are here gathered from 
admirable sketches by Mrs. Pres- 
1* 51 



Paul Ibamilton Iba^ne. 

ton, Maurice Thompson, C. F. 
Richardson, Miss Rutherford, from 
" Poets' Homes," and other sources, 
as well as from his own writings. 
Thompson writes nobly of his 
friend and brother poet, but has 
something of an apologetic tone for 
the poetry of Hayne — at least for 
its limitations. The sketches by 
Mrs. Preston, herself the queen of 
Southern song, are unsurpassed. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne was born 
in Charleston, S. C, January i, 
1830. His ancestors came from 
Shropshire, England, in colonial 
days. Says a writer in " Poets' 
Homes : " " The Haynes of South 
Carolina, like the Adamses snd Quin- 
ceys of Massachusetts, have seemed 
to rely for fame rather upon the 
putting forth of some new achieve- 
ment in each generation than upon 
any proud contemplation of past 
celebrity or renown." John Hayne, 
of Hayne Hall, Shropshire, ances- 
tor of the American family, was of 
52 



Paul Damilton Da^ne* 

the most prominent English gentry, 
but that did not prevent the patriot- 
ic devotion and matchless courage of 
Isaac Hayne for the American cause 
in the Revolution. One uncle, Gov. 
Robert Y. Hayne, the opponent of 
Webster, was one of the most hon- 
ored statesmen of his time. Anoth- 
er uncle. Col. Arthur P. Hayne, 
fought in three w^ars, and became a 
member of the United States Sen- 
ate in 1858. His father, Lieut. 
Hayne, died at sea while the poet 
v^as yet an infant. One of his most 
touching earlier poems is with ref- 
erence to that father whose voice he 
" has never sprung to catch." He was 
educated in Charleston, graduating 
in due time from Charleston Col- 
lege. Inheriting the prestige of a 
noble name and a fair amount of 
v^ealth, he was free to choose his 
own path in the world. The idea 
did not prevail at that time in that 
city that any young man was free 
to do nothing. Mrs. Preston says : 
53 



Paul DamUton l)asne. 

'*The Charleston of thirty years 
ago was a very different place from 
the Charleston of to-day. The old 
Huguenot element, with its aristo- 
cratic names and associations, was 
strong, and the large admixture of 
good English blood helped to make 
the people just a little exclusive. 
There was a decided literary ele- 
ment, too, among its higher classes. 
Legare's wit and scholarship bright- 
ened its social circle ; Calhoun's 
deep shadow loomed up over it from 
his plantation at Fort Hill ; Gil- 
more Simms's genial culture broad- 
ened its sympathies. The latter 
was the Maecenas to a band of bril- 
liant youths who used to meet for 
literary suppers at his beautiful 
home." After graduation Hayne 
studied law, but he came from school 
a verse maker, and soon, with Tim- 
rod and others, became a regular 
contributor to the Southern Liter- 
ary Messenger^ so long published 
at Richmond, Va. He soon be- 
54 



Paul toamilion Ibaigne* 
came editor in part of the Southern 
Literary Gazette, a weekly issued 
in Charleston. The coterie of young 
literary aspirants in this rare old 
city determined to have a better out- 
let for their thought, hence RusselVs 
Magazine made its appearance in 
April, 1857, with Paul H. Hayne as 
editor. This lived only two years, 
but the prestige and practice given 
these young writers made its career 
not an unworthy one. About this 
time he was married to Miss Mary 
Middleton Michel, daughter of an 
eminent French physician, honored 
for his skill in the army of the 
first Napoleon. 

Hayne's first volume of poems, 
from Ticknor & Fields, Boston, ap- 
peared in 1855; his second, from 
Charleston, in 1857 ; and the third, 
from Ticknor & Fields, in i860. 
All these were well received, and 
gave him a high position among the 
writers of the South. At the North, 
Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, and 
55 



Paul Damilton Da^ne. 

others, held out the hand of kind 
welcome. His path now seemed 
the fairest. To quote Mrs. Preston 
again : " He had the advantage of 
quite a distinguished appearance, 
was slightly built, and of medium 
height, with a graceful, lithe figure, 
a fine, oval face, with starry, mag- 
netic eyes that glowed with respon- 
sive sympathy. He had abundant 
dark hair thrown back from a high 
forehead, and his manner ^vas ur- 
bane and courteous to a high de- 
gree." Possessing a beautiful home, 
fine library, ample provisions for 
the future, troops of friends, and 
tasting the first sweets of a poet's 
honors, he discerned no boding 
shadow of the calamities through 
which he must pass to become the 
laureate of his loved Southland. 

It has been claimed that no good 
poetry was produced at the South 
before the war. The works of 
Pinkney, Poe, J. R. Thompson, 
Flash, Wilde, Cooke, Hope, and 
56 



IPaul Ibamilton Ibai^ne* 

others, were far from being without 
merit. Moreover, Hayne's three vol- 
umes, w^hile they did not show^ the 
maturity which he attained in his later 
years, yet gave evidence that the hand 
of a master sought the tuneful strings. 
If a new writer should put forth to- 
morrow, in one of our dailies, a 
poem as good as some of these, 
public interest in that writer would 
be immediately awakened. Hayne 
stood thus early with 

Eyes fixed forever on a starry height, 
Whence stately shapes of grand imag- 
inings 
Flash down the splendors of imperial 
light. 

He early announced the creed which 
he follow^ed in poverty and exile as 
if the fateful call of destiny were 
upon him : 

Yet would I rather in the outward state 
Of song's immortal temple lay me 
down, 
A beggar basking by that radiant gate. 
Than bend beneath the haughtiest em- 
pire's crown. 

57 



Paul "©amilton Ibasne* 

James Wood Davidson says of 
these earlier songs : " There are 
several that Tennyson might have 
written w^ithout damage to his rep- 
utation as the first artist among 
English poets." The "Anniversa- 
ry Ode " before the Carolina Art 
Association, delivered February lo, 
1856, was, by some, considered the 
best of these early productions. It 
has some of the sentiment ex- 
pressed more at length in Lanier's 
" Symphony." Those who find 
little merit in what they are 
pleased to call the "Old South" 
would do well to compare this with 
other anniversary poems, note the 
delicate play of fancy and the rich 
music of the vs^ords, then produce 
an instance in which a young man 
has written a better. " The Pre- 
sentiment " has this : 

Over her face so tender and meek, 

The light of a prophecy lies, 
That has silvered the red of the rose on 
her cheek, 

58 



|>aul Ibamilton fba^ne^ 

And chastened the thought in her 
eyes! 

The closing stanza runs : 

And later still, shall the churchyard 
flowers, 
Gleam nigh with a white increase; 
And a bird outpour by the old church 
towers, 
A plaintive poem of peace. 

" The Village Beauty " and '^ The 
Wintry Winds May Idly Rave " 
are very different poems, but each 
exquisite. This, over the picture of 
one dead, is touching : 

The face, the beautiful face, 

Ever haunting my heart and brain, 
Bringing ofttimes a dream of heaven, 

Ofttimes the pang of a pain 
Which darteth down like a lightning 
flash 
To the dreadful deeps. 
Where the gems of a shipwrecked life 
are cast. 
And its dead cold promise sleeps. 

Hayne's second volume was made 
up largely of sonnets. He culti- 
\:^ 59 



Paul l)amilton Dagne. 

vated with success this form of 
poetry to the end. Of his sonnets 
Maurice Thompson says : " I could 
pick out twenty of them the equal 
of almost any in our language." 
Among the earliest is found " Octo- 
ber : " 

The passionate summer's dead! the sky's 

aglow 
With roseate flushes of matured desire, 
The Avinds at eve are musical and low, 
As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre, 
Far up among the pillared clouds of fire, 
Whose pomp of strange procession up- 
ward rolls, 
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured 

scrolls, 
To celebrate the summer's past renown; 
Ah me! how regally the heavens look 

down, 
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal 

woods 
And harvest fields with hoarded increase 

brown, 
And deep-toned majesty of golden 

floods. 
That raise their solemn dirges to the sky. 
To swell the purple pomp that floateth 

by. 

60 



Paul Damilton Iba^ne* 

" Great Poets and Small " and 
" My Study," give an insight to the 
author's life and thoughts. 

When the war came, the poet, in 
his zeal for his native land, sought 
to vv^icld weapons of warfare, and 
was placed on Gov. Pickens's staff, 
but on accomit of his frail health 
was compelled to resign. Never- 
theless, he breathed out his defiance 
in song, as what Southern poet did 
not? Some who never felt the di- 
vine frenzy before or after became 
inspired amid that breaking up of 
the great deep of human passions. 
He, like all the others, begins with 
high hopes and dignified defiance 
in "My Mother Land," but ends 
with a sad and bitter wail for the 
dead. Witness some lines : 

I am sitting alone and weary, 

By the hearth of my darkened room ; 

And the low wind's miserere 

Makes sadder the midnight gloom. 

There's a nameless terror nigh me — 
There's a phantom spell on the air, 

And methinks that the dead glide by me, 
61 



Paul Damllton Da^gne. 

And the breath of the grave's in my 
hair. 

Hayne had no hearth to sit by 
when the conflict closed. During 
the bombardment of Charleston his 
beautiful home and ample library 
were lost. The family silver had 
been carried to Columbia, but was 
lost on Sherman's march. Nothing 
remained to lighten the weight of 
abject poverty. There were friends, 
it is true, but in many instances they 
too had lost all. It was a land of 
ruined homes, prostrate business, 
and broken hopes. Over all was 
the dark pall of reconstruction. To 
establish a home of some sort and 
begin anew the struggle of life, the 
poet secured eighteen acres of poor 
pine land, located on the railroad, a 
iew miles from Augusta, Ga. Says 
Maurice Thompson : " There he 
built of upright boards a story-and- 
a-half cottage, rough, poorly joined, 
and roofed with clapboards. It was 
just such a house, to all outward ap- 
62 



Paul "fcamilton Ibaisne* 

pearances, as one sees occupied by 
the trackmen's families along any 
railroad ; but inside it was what 
nothing but enlightened love could 
have made it — a bower of beau- 
ty. No beauty that money buys 
was there — for very little money 
ever crossed the threshold — but the 
invisible, imperishable beauty of 
sweet souls was there, informing 
everything. The place became a 
sort of Southern Mecca, to which 
loving folk made pilgrimages ; and 
its name, " Copse Hill," grew famil- 
iar to all the world. Here, upon a 
desk fashioned out of a rude work- 
bench left by the carpenters who 
tumbled the house together, Hayne 
wrote all of his most notable 
poems." 

With little market for his wares 
at the North, with the South too 
poor to buy, and with friends urg- 
ing him to turn his efforts to some- 
thing else, he held to his first love 
— poesy — with the devotion of a 
63 



Paul "fcamilton Dagne* 

Milton dictating " Paradise Lost " 
in poverty and blindness. He 
adopted the philosoj^hy of action 
proclaimed b}^ himself years before : 

Still smiles the brave soul, undivorced 
from hope; 

And, with unwavering eye and warrior 
mien, 

Walks in the shadow, dauntless and se- 
rene, 
To test, through hostile years, the utmost 
scope 

Of man's endurance — constant to essay 

All heights of patience free to feet of 
clay. 

Tennyson is indeed a virgin poet, 
if speaking in "naught but num- 
bers " can make one such. In like 
manner, no one in America has 
been so completely and fully a poet 
as Hayne. Longfellow was for a 
time professor in college ; Bryant 
was a ne^vspaper man ; and the 
others, temporarily at least, have 
trained Pegasus along the paths of 
different professions. Barring a 
few prose sketches, almost poetry, 
64 



Paul Ibamilton ibai^ne. 

and one of the finest biographies 
ever written — that of Timrod — 
nothing baser than the fine-beaten 
gold of poesy came from his work- 
shop. The gold was well-beaten, 
for everything bore the impress of 
a careful master's hand. He not 
onl}^ " uttered nothing base," but he 
uttered fewer commonplaces than 
most men. Thompson says : 
" Hayne is perhaps the only poet in 
America who ever dared to depend 
solely upon poetry for his income." 
Some of his longer poems obtained 
high approval from lovers of good 
poetry, but he is at his best in his 
sonnets and lyrics. He could best 
hear — not the voices of the Greeks, 
but of his own birds, streams, and 
trees : 

Voices low and sweet 

From the far-off stream, 

Where two rivulets meet 

With the murmur of a dream; 

Voices loud and free, 

From every bush and tree, 
5 E 65 



Ipaul Ibamilton Ibagne^ 

Of sportive forest bards outpouring 
songs of gladness, 

But over them still, 

With its passionate thrill, 
The mock-bird's jocund madness! 

If Bryant sometimes served at 
the altar of Nature, Hayne was her 
high priest who ever dwelt amid her 
glories. If Byron, in the rapid 
sweep of his telescope, took in 
grand views of Nature's operations, 
Hayne, with his sunlit microscope, 
spied out her subtlest secrets. Bry- 
ant was the pioneer of New En- 
land poets. He was the leader of 
an association of poets and wits — 
such as Dana, Halleck, Drake, Wil- 
lis, Sands, and others. Even Long- 
fellow followed him at first. So 
Hayne was long the literary high 
priest of the South. Lanier, Tim- 
rod, and others came about him for 
guidance and encouragement. The 
cheerful letters of counsel which he 
wrote to the younger writers of the 
South are said to have been numer- 
66 



Paul Damilton Ibai^ne* 

ous and long. Even Simms, who 
like Scott had turned his songs into 
romance, was surprised that Hayne 
could work on, brave and hopeful, 
amid the poverty and desolation left 
him by the war. Thompson says : 
" No right-minded man can go to 
that lonely cot on the poor, brush- 
covered hill in the Georgia wilder- 
ness, and fail to feel how much 
courage it required to live there as 
Hayne lived, keeping about him all 
the time the serene self-control and 
preserving the noble self-devotion 
characteristic of the man." It is 
not strange that he felt for a while 
the bitterness of the darkness left 
by the war. With so gentle a spir- 
it this could not last. The mock- 
ing bird would pour out his soul, 
and the zephyrs sing through the 
pines, and these sang of peace. 
His fame grew apace, and in time 
he came to contribute to almost ev- 
ery literary journal of respectability 
North and South. But though he 
67 



Paul Ibamllton Ibaisne. 

lived to write " The Pole of Death " 
in memory of Sidney Lanier, yet 
he did not change the spirit of his 
work. He maintained his identity 
with his section, and greatly im- 
proved, but did not greatly alter, the 
quality of his poetry. To the last 
he belonged to what some have de- 
nominated the " Old South," and 
not to the " recent movement in 
Southern literature." Brave and 
loyal indeed was he to his convic- 
tions as to his mission. Many of 
his poems, " polished as a star," 
shine with starlike splendor. Bet- 
ter, maybe, would some of them 
have been if polished less, if show- 
ing less of the self-consciousness of 
the poet, less of South Carolina, 
less of the pines, and more of the 
freedom of the wider world ; but 
then he did not know, had not seen 
that wider world — truly and well he 
sang of what he knew best, and 
made his pines, his birds, and his 
sunlit skies immortal. 
6S 



IPaul Ibamilton Iba^^ne^ 

In 1872 the Lippincotts published 
his " Legends and Lyrics." This 
contains some of his ripest work. 
Hale & Son, in 1873, brought out 
Timrod's poems, containing a biog- 
raphy by Hayne, which may well 
remain for all time as a model. In 
1875 his " Mountain of the Lovers " 
was given to the public, and in 1879 
he wrote an Introductory notice for 
the poems of Dr. F. O. Ticknor. 
The crowning volume of Hayne's 
poems was brought out in magnifi- 
cent style by D. Lothrop & Co., in 
1882. This contains all his best 
poems, except a few written after- 
wards, which lie scattered through 
the pages of papers and magazines. 
One of these, the " Wheat Field," is 
perhaps not far from his very best, 
and " Face to Face " is the best of 
all. For the " Southern Bivouac," 
of 1885, he furnished a sketch of 
ante bellu7n Charleston as charming 
as some of Irving's descriptions. 
This carries us back to the time 
69 



S 'Pfalwfs. to die las: 



to She sa» 
^k£bA of 



todo 



We 



liH^ 




Paul Hamilton Iba^ne. 

ture. One such tree is tenderly en- 
shrined in poetry as having shel- 
tered Timrod on his visit to " Copse 
Hill " a short time before his death. 
Hayne says : 

Otreel against thy mighty trunk he laid 

His weary head. The shades 

Stole over him like the first cool spell of 

sleep; 
It brought a peace so deep 
The unquiet passion died from out his 

eyes, 
As lightning from the stilled skies. 

In the larger knowledge of these 
men which shall come to the future 
the story of the friendship of Hayne 
and Timrod will be considered one 
of the most touching in literary his- 
tory. They had been schoolmates, 
and even then encouraged each oth- 
er in writing verse. They both lost 
all bv the war, but Timrod never 
recovered from the neglect which 
followed. The story of his strug- 
gles and death is more pathetic than 
anv told of Keats. In regard to 
71 



Paul Ibamilton Ibaigne. 

other poems, following Maurice 
Thompson again, " the ' Mountain 
of Lovers,' the ' Macrobian Bow,' 
' McDonald's Raid,' ' Unveiled,' the 
* Vengeance of the Goddess Diana,' 
and the ' Solitary Lake ' are works 
worth the crown of an academy." 
" Muscadines," says Mrs. Preston, 
" is marked wath an Ariel-like fancy 
suggestive of Keats or Shelley." His 
" Daphles " won, we are told, the 
approval of Jean Ingelow, Longfel- 
low, Holmes, Whittier, Whipple, 
and Richard Grant White. An 
ever present wish for the highest 
was his heritage. 

Yearning meanwhile for pinions like a 

dove's 
To waft me further still 
Beyond the compass of the unwinged will. 

Snatches taken here and there 
cannot give any just idea of the po- 
et's work, but they at least show 
something of his skill in rhythm. 
" Unveiled " begins : 
72 



Paul Damilton '©asne. 

I cannot tell when first I saw her face; 
Was it athwart a sunset on the sea, 
When the huge billows heaved tumult- 

uously, 
Or in the quiet of some woodland place, 
Wrapped by the shadowy boon 
Of breezeless verdures from the sum- 
mer noon? 
Or, likelier still, in a rock-girdled dell 
Between vast mountains, while the 

midnight hour 
Blossomed above me like a shining 

flower, 
Whose star-wrought petals turned the 

fields of space 
To one great garden of mysterious 

light? 
Vain! vain! I cannot tell 
When first the beauty and majestic 

might 
Of her calm presence, bore my soul 

apart 
From all low issues of the groveling 

world. 

Other lines are : 

A rapture smites me, half akin to pain ; 
A sun-flash quivering through white 
chords of rain. 

And this : 

73 



IPaul •Hamilton Ibai^ne* 

I love the mockbird's and brown thrush's 

lay, 
The melted soul of May ; 

Carl Brenner painted the beech 
tree in every variant light and in 
every season of the year until it 
seemed clad in a new splendor. So 
our poet, kept by fateful circum- 
stances to narrow limits of observa- 
tion, made such minute study of the 
various aspects of nature as had rare- 
ly been made before, yet it was the 
eye of a poet that saw the clouds 
come and go and the moon wax and 
wane. Take " Hints of Spring : " 

A softening of the misty heaven, 
A subtle murmur of the air. 

In midsummer the winds 

Seem wandering through a golden dream. 

For him the cloud pictures were 
" castles with guarded roof," " pa- 
godas vague," " lines of Orient pil- 
grims," "splintered icebergs," 
" weird pictures " all. The bee, the 
storm, the forest, twilight, peach 
74 



Paul l)amilton Iba^ne, 

blossoms — the varied phases of 
these and many such things became 
the subjects of his musings. But 
with the notes which these inspire 
there mingles no wail of a Byron, 
no defiance of a Shelley. He does 
not even turn preacher, like aWords- 
worth, but allows the beauty which 
he sees to weave itself into his life 
and through his verse into the lives 
of others. A few years ago Sted- 
man said : " Hayne's vitality, cour- 
age, and lyrical impulse have kept 
him in voice, and his people regard 
him with a tenderness which, if a 
commensurate largess were added, 
should make him feel less solitary 
among his pines." This meant that 
while the Southern people honored 
him with calls on anniversaries, and 
were proud that cultured persons 
abroad regarded him as a poet of no 
mean attainments, yet they did not 
buy and read his poems. We should 
have done so then for the poet's 
3 75 



IPaul Ibamllton tbai^ne. 

sake if no other; we should do so 
now for our own sakes. 

Before the war our people bought 
only English poetry ; the best, may- 
be, but not always the latest. Now 
that we have added New England 
to our collections, we certainly ought 
to add our own Hayne, Lanier, Tim- 
rod, Ticknor, and Mrs. Preston — 
stars fitted to shine in any firma- 
ment. Who dares make claim of 
being well informed and yet be ig- 
norant of our Hayne — not ours for 
sectional reasons, but ours because 
he has seen our skies, our hills, our 
streams, our trees, birds, and flowers, 
and shown them to us touched with 
new effulgence. He has shown us 
that beauty enough lies at our doors 
to enrich our lives. Some years ago 
a writer in Harper's intimated that 
poetry has had its day ; but 

As long as the heart has passions, 
As long as the life has woes, 

so long shall we need poetry to voice 
76 



Paul Damtlton Ibasne* 

these passions and sob out this woe. 
Poetry is the truest philosophy of 
life. Its form may change, but its 
spirit is immortal. This would be 
an " iron world " indeed, if the pa- 
tient, loving hand of the poet should 
no more open for us the gates to the 
temple Beautiful. 

Hayne's health had never been 
vigorous. No doubt he was very 
much sustained under the burdens 
of work which lay upon his last 
years by the sympathetic help of his 
watchful wife, and by the precious 
consciousness that his only child, his 
darling Will, bid fair to develop a 
father's taste and poetic tempera- 
ment. He had felt 

A little while I fain would linger yet, 
All for love's sake, for love that cannot 

tire. 
But that faith in Omnipotence which 
had kept his life and verse from 
growing morose as he drew face to 
face with death enabled him to sing : 
77 



Paul l)amilton fjagne. 

Sad mortal! Couldst thou but know 

What truly it means to die, 
The wings of thy soul would glow 

And the hopes of thy heart beat high; 
Thou wouldst turn from the Pyrrhonist 
schools, 

And laugh their jargon to scorn, 
As the babble of midnight fools 

Ere the morning of Truth be born: 
But I, earth's madness above, 

In a kingdom of stormless breath — 
I gaze on the glory of love 

In the unveiled face of Death. 

I tell thee his face is fair 

As the moon-bow's amber rings. 
And the gleam in his unbound hair 

Like the flush of a thousand springs; 
His smile is the fathomless beam 

Of the star-shine's sacred light, 
When the summers of Southland dream 

In the lap of the holy night: 
For I, earth's blindness above, 

In a kingdom of halcyon breath — 
I gaze on the marvel of love 

In the unveiled face of Death. 

Through the splendor of stars impearled 
In the glow of their far-off grace, 

He is soaring world by world. 

With the souls in his strong embrace ; 
78 



Paul t)amilton 1ba^ne» 

Lone ethers, unstirred bj a wind, 

At the passage of Death grow sweet 
With the fragrance that floats behind 

The flash of his winged retreat: 
And I, earth's madness above, 

'Mid a kingdom of tranquil breath. 
Have gazed on the luster of love 

In the unveiled face of Death. 

But beyond the stars and the sun 

I can follow him still on his way, 
Till the pearl-white gates are won 

In the calm of the central day. 
Far voices of fond acclaim 

Thrill down from the place of souls, 
As Death, with a touch like flame, 

Uncloses the goal of goals; 
And from heaven of heavens above 

God speaketh with bateless breath — 
My angel of perfect love 

Is the angel men call Death! 

This was the poet's death song. 
Vain is the tale of dissipation told 
by a heartless enemy against one 
who sees such a vision. Early in 
July, 1 886, Paul H. Ilayne passed 
away. His cherished wife had not 
only been a companion, but a help- 
er. The " Bonny Brown Hand " 
79 



IPaul Ibamllton Iba^ne. 

had toiled as well as comforted. 
Moreover, she was the inspiration 
of some of his best poems. With 
her son she kept vigil awhile at 
" Copse Hill," then joined her hus- 
band " in a kingdom of stormless 
breath." The gifted son, William, 
has already achieved honorable' dis- 
tinction in the field of poesy. His 
father had sung : 

We roam the hills together 

In the golden summer weather, 

Will and I : 
And the glowing sunbeams bless us, 
And the winds of heaven caress us. 
As we wander hand in hand 
Through the blissful summer land, 
Will and I. 

May "the glowing sunbeams" con- 
tinue to bless that son, the pride of 
a great-souled father, as he w^anders 
through a " blissful summer land." 

Hayne could hardly dip his pen 
in hate, even to curse a foe, but he 
knew how to be severely just when 
occasion demanded. He was jeal- 
ous of the honor of his loved South. 
80 



Paul Ibamtlton Ibai^ne. 

He was, as said, the sympathetic 
high priest of literature to many a 
struggling votary at its altars, but 
his soul was vexed when pretend- 
ers took the field, as happened so 
often at a time when any cheap 
newspaper could assume the role of 
trumpeter to herald and glorify 
conceited arrogance. In the South- 
ern Magazine for June, 1874, under 
the title " Literature of the South,'^ 
he vents his righteous scorn upon 
such presumptuous ignorance, char- 
acterizing the product as " the fun- 
gous school." " There is a class of 
writers at the South who, through 
the influence of their peculiar pro- 
ductions, have been involuntarily, 
but not less surely, the worst ene- 
mies of the intellectual advancement 
and repute of their section. Writ- 
ing at the command of impulse, not 
inspiration, with little mental train- 
ing or artistic experience, with but 
slight knowledge of life beneath its 
conventional surfaces, and no marked 
6 F 81 



Paul "fcamilton Ibapne. 

originality or natural genius to coun- 
terbalance such disadvantages, they 
boldly challenge the public admira- 
tion by works as ambitious often in 
scope and design as they are fee- 
ble, inefficient, and worthless in ex- 
ecution. Yet now and then such 
performances obtain a factitious suc- 
cess. By means primarily of local 
influence and patronage, of the cla- 
quement of friends and allies, and 
the blatant commendation of the 
press (generally the provincial press) 
— in brief, by the blowing of an or- 
chestra of brazen trumpets, all set 
to the one tune of indiscriminate 
adulation, the unlucky masses are 
stunned, if not into admiration, at 
least into acquiescence. They find 
it is ' quite the thing ' to have read 
Mrs. Duck-a-love's ' pathetic and 
passionate romance, that marvelous 
revelation of a woman's famishing 
heart,' or Mrs. General Aristotle 
Brown's ' profound, philosophic nov- 
el, in which metaphysical acumen 
82 



Paul l)amilton fb^^nc^ 

and a powerful grasp and clear 
comprehension of the knottiest so- 
cial problems of our time are com- 
bined with dramatic capabilities sel- 
dom equaled, and never surpassed, in 
the literature of the present or any 
other age.' . . . Meanwhile, the sort 
of literature we refer to is fast as- 
suming the form and consistency of 
what may be termed a school. . . . 
Now all 'schools' of this description 
are of factitious growth — mere fun- 
gi, sure to perish finally of their own 
inherent feebleness ; yet are they 
most harmful to the countries or 
communities in which for the time 
they flourish. Wrong standards of 
taste or no taste are set up. The 
first essential principles of art are 
wholly ignored. Every half- edu- 
cated person who has composed 
and read aloud some crude essay 
upon nothing in particular before a 
local literary club or library asso- 
ciation straightway rushes into print, 
and, scorning the 'day of small 
83 



ff>aul Ibamilton Ibasne. 

things,' must needs come out with 
some elaborate performance, re- 
markable only for its material weight. 
. . . Of course under such fos- 
tering care, and aided by the several 
influences indicated, we niay soon 
reasonably expect to see in full devel- 
opment among us the * Southern 
Fungous School of Literature,' with 
every special tint and grace inhe- 
rent in the order of Fungi. Al- 
ready have some of the chief ex- 
ponents of this rising ' school ' been 
ridiculed mercilessly by the best or- 
gans of Northern and English crit- 
ical opinion — organs that have 
shown their impartiality by com- 
mending, and in earnest terms, 
such other Southern works as 
seemed to them in any genuine way 
meritorious. But no foreign ridi- 
cule, however richly deserved, noth- 
ing truly either of logic or of 
laughter can stop this growing 
evil until our own scholars and 
thinkers have the manliness and 
84 



f>aul Ibamtlton Iba^ne. 

honesty to discourage instead of 
applauding such manifestations of 
artistic weakness and artistic plati- 
tude as have hitherto been foisted 
upon us by persons uncalled and 
unchosen by any of the Muses." 

The publication of a collection of 
Hayne's best poems would enhance 
his fame, and his prose works 
ought by all means to be brought 
into more convenient form. 

Hayne's cheerful spirit has been 
touched upon repeatedly. This 
was not always born of workyday 
hope, but more often of strong 
resolution and sublime faith. He 
was the " weary pilgrim sore beset " 
of whom he sings so beautifully : 
With broken staff and tattered shoon 
I wander slow from dawn to noon — 
From arid noon till, dew-impearied, 
Pale twilight steals across the world. 
Yet sometimes through dim evening 

calms 
I catch the gleam of distant palms ; 
And hear, far off, a mystic sea, 
Divine as waves on Galilee. 
85 



Paul Ibamilton l)asne. 

Perchance through paths unknown, for- 
lorn, 
I still may reach an Orient morn; 
To rest when Easter breezes stir 
Around the sacred sepulcher. 

Hayne had hoped that destiny 
would relent, " even at the eleventh 
hour," and give him an opportunity 
of visiting England and the East. 
He wrote to a friend a short time 
before his death, lamenting his 
final disappointment, but in words 
which give the key to his character 
and his triumphs. He says : "The 
beauty and the splendor of the an- 
cient places of the earth, those after 
which perhaps T have yearned too 
deeply, it has not pleased the All- 
wise to let me see and enjoy. But 
what matter, O friend of mine ! 
what matter, if, after the voyage 
we all must take, I am permitted to 
pass up the shining shores of the 
country imperishable, and to enter a 
temple fairer than the York Mins- 
ter you describe, and a tabernacle 
86 



Paul D amilton Iba^ne. 

more majestic than Westminster, 
there to worship, not amid dead 
men's ashes and fugues of broken 
music, but amid such light and har- 
mony as occasionally, in moments 
of lofty but still fleeting spirituality, 
have overwhelmed while they en- 
chanted me ? " We wait to see who 
shall gather up the fallen laurels 
and string anew the broken lyre. 
87 



m. franft ®. ^ticUnor. 

ONE could hardly look to a 
country physician with a 
large practice for literature. 
Especially would this be true if he 
should be a farmer and horticultur- 
ist as well. Should he have skill in 
music and painting, surely no time 
would be left to toy with the Muse 
of song. 

A country doctor is a very neces- 
sary, often philanthropic, individ- 
ual. Balzac and Ian Maclaren have 
both rendered him immortal, but 
not as a literary man. That is sel- 
dom his forte. But often the flow- 
ers and fruitage of literature appear 
in places apparently least propi- 
tious. The one who has written 
some of the best poetry produced 
in America is the least known of all 
our poets. A few years ago Mr. 



2)r. 3Pcan?i ©. ^icftnor, 



Powell, one of the editors of the In- 
dependent, wrote in reference to a 
poem as follows: "If it be possible 
to have collected and put out a vol- 
ume of lyrics like that, it will consti- 
tute the finest volume ever issued in 
the United States, if not in the Eng- 
lish language." This poem was 
entitled "Loyal," and was written 
by Dr. Frank O. Ticknor, of Co- 
lumbus, Ga. 

Paul H. Hayne, a brother poet, 
wrote: "In the month of December, 
1874, died near Columbus, Ga., one 
of the truest and sweetest lyric poets 
this country has yet produced. 
Nevertheless, he lived the fifty-two 
years of his allotted existence in 
comparative obscurity, and passed 
to the 'great beyond' unknown, 
despite the rare originality of his 
genius and works, except, indeed, to 
that small portion of the Southern 
public who condescended now and 
then to pass from politics to po- 



90 



That portion of the United States 
technically known as the South has 
within all its borders no magazine 
or weekly worthy of the name de- 
voted to literature. While this is 
true, Southern writers in the last 
few years have preempted a liberal 
portion of space in many leading 
periodicals published in other parts 
of the Union. Much is now writ- 
ten of the present status of Southern 
literature, and many predictions are 
made with reference to its future, 
yet little is known of some of the 
writers who immediately preceded 
the present generation in the South. 
As new works on American litera- 
ture are issued from the press more 
of these names find place and praise 
in each succeeding volume. How- 
ever, one meritorious name contin- 
ues to be omitted. Though Mr. 
Gosse says, "Mr. Stedman has 
mapped out the heavens with a tel- 
escope," yet the name of Dr. Frank 
Orrerv Ticknor does not appear 
91 



2>r. fv^n^ ©. tTicftnor* 



even as a "diminutive fixed star" 
in the "poetical firmament." Nor 
does the latest edition of Johnson's 
"Universal Cyclopedia" make any 
note of the author of "Little Gif- 
fen." Mr. Richardson in his some- 
what extensive work of two vol- 
umes makes the same omission; 
and in Mr. Adams's " Handbook of 
Two Thousand or More American 
Authors/* though he enrolls light- 
ning bugs as well as stars, we catch 
not a gleam from "Torch Hill." Yet 
a true poet dwelt there. Perhaps 
no man of the same degree of talent 
was ever better or more favorably 
known at home and less known 
abroad than the subject of this 
sketch. He sang his songs for his 
friends, and sought no other audi- 
tors. He struck his lyre for nei- 
ther gold nor fame, as he never 
sighed for a publisher, but gave his 
most serious efforts to local papers 
and obscure periodicals. Some- 
times a friendly publisher sent him 
92 



2)r. fv^rik ©. ZiCknox* 



a check, but this he accepted more 
as an offering of friendship than as 
pay for hterary work. The Muses 
he loved for the sake of their com- 
panionship, and it was not merely 
the Muse of song, but the Muses; 
for he had graceful touch with 
draughtsman's pencil, and breathed 
harmonies upon the responding 
soul of the IimO,. 

About 1848 a young physician 
purchased a farm upon the summit 
of a high hill five miles south of Co- 
lumbus, Ga. This he called "Torch 
Hill," from its having been, ac- 
cording to tradition, the scene of an 
Indian battle fought by torchlight. 
The natural scenery from this hill 
overlooking miles of the Chatta- 
hoochee Valley is said to be in the 
highest degree picturesque. Here 
a home was established surrounded 
by all the beauty that poetic taste 
and insight could devise. This was 
the handiwork of the scholarly, 
Christian physician. Dr. Frank O. 
93 



Dr. 3ftanft ©. Eic?inor« 



Ticknor. He was a child of Geor- 
gia. His father was a New Jersey- 
man, a physician of great energy, 
who had emigrated to Savannah 
and married into a distinguished 
family. Dying early, he left a wid- 
ow with three young children, one 
of whom was Frank. She soon re- 
moved with these to Columbus, Ga., 
where she succeeded in giving them 
a liberal education. Frank studied 
medicine in New York and Phila- 
delphia, and soon after graduation 
was married to Miss Rosalie Nel- 
son, daughter of Maj. M. Nelson, a 
soldier of 1812, and subsequently a 
member of Congress. It w^as soon 
after his marriage that Dr. Ticknor 
bought ^^ Torch Hill." He was a phy- 
sician of no mean skill, patient and 
humane as Avell, ministering to the 
country folk for miles around, rich 
and poor alike, doing such good as 
falls to a noble-hearted, imselfish 
physician more than to almost any 
other man. While actively en- 
94 



5)r. f ranft ©. ^iclinoc* 

gaged in the duties of his profession 
he found time to cultivate the choic- 
est fruits of that Southern land, and 
to rear flowers until his place was 
described as a very' Eden of roses.'' 
Not only did he raise the finest 
peaches, pears, and other choice 
fruits, but to help others he wrote 
of their culture for the Southern 
CiiUivator^ of Athens, Ga. Never- 
theless, he dreamed the dreams of 
a poet as well. So much of his life 
was devoted to his fellow-man that, 
as Hayne says, "brief, swallow 
flights of song only were possible 
to him." When the war broke out 
he was in the full tide of life, and, 
taking the Southern side, burst at 
once into song of surprising force. 
AVhile his sympathies for the South 
were intense, none of his songs 
were of the kind described by J. 
Wood Davidson as "bombast and 
fustian done into rhyme by bellicose 
youths, who cried with a loud voice 
to our people of all ages, sizes, and 
95 



2)r, Jfrank ©. XTlcftnor* 

conditions to buckle on armor, to 
rush from the mountains and from, 
the valleys, to bring spears, pitch- 
forks, and even bare bodkins, ev- 
erybody from everywhere with ev- 
erything, to come, not to stand upon 
the order of their coming, but come 
at once." In each case it was the 
heroic deed already wrought that 
touched his soul and called forth a 
strain of martial song. The effect 
is not brought about by any fancy 
measure; in fact, his verse halts a 
little sometimes, but much of it has 
the vigor of the old ballad writers. 
In simple measure, it goes straight 
to its destination v/ithout dallying. 
As Hayne says, "there is no floun- 
dering to get up a foam." 

The poem which appealed so 
strongly to Virginian pride was ev- 
idently written after the Union ar- 
mies had entered Virginia and met 
with some reverses. However the 
matter may be thought of now, 
Ticknor, in common with the Vir- 
96 



ginians, thought that the citizen 
owed his ahegiance first to the 
state, and that any advance of forces 
from the outside not asked for by 
the state was an invasion. Happi- 
ly, we are far enough removed from 
the hostihties of war to consider and 
settle the merits of poems, paint- 
ings, or any works of art having to 
do with war subjects without hav- 
ing the decision warped by section- 
al feelings. Such ought to be the 
case at least. If a poem is well 
written from the author's point of 
view, though we may consider that 
he should never have occupied such 
mount of vision, yet we may be able 
to settle whether or not such con- 
tains in full degree the elements 
which go to make up poetry. Soon 
after Virginia became the seat of 
war, Ticknor, doubtless having read 
"Knights of the Golden Horseshoe*' 
long before, naturally thought of 
Spotswood and his ride over the 
mountains at the head of his band 
1* G 97 



Dr. jfranli ©. ^icftnot. 



by which he laid open the beautiful 
valle}/ west of the Blue Ridge to 
the settlement of white men. In 
this romance Caruthers gives the 
events that purported to have hap- 
pened on the expedition, an account 
of the circumstances under which 
Gov. Spotswood and his followers 
had to shoe their horses for the first 
time after leaving the soft soil of the 
tide water country and reaching the 
rocky hills beyond, and the subse- 
quent presentation by the House of 
Burgesses of golden horseshoes to 
such of the youths as Gov. Spots- 
wood judged most worthy. 

Those receiving this honor were 
ever after considered as having 
been knighted; and as most of the 
names given in this old list were 
found represented in the first or- 
ganization of troops in Virginia, 
the poet celebrates this fact in his 
"Virginians of the Valley." This 
poem is short enough to quote : 
98 



2)r. f ranft ©♦ ^icftnor* 

The knightliest of the knightly race 

That, since the days of old, 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 

Alight in hearts of gold; 
The kindliest of the kindly band 

That, rarely hating ease, 
Yet rode with Spotswood round the 
land, 

And Raleigh round the seas; 

Who climbed the blue Virginian hills 

Against embattled foes, 
And planted there, in valleys fair, 

The Hly and the rose; 
Whose fragrance lives in many lands. 

Whose beauty stars the earth, 
And light the hearths of happy homes 

With loveliness and worth. 

We thought they slept! — the sons who 
kept 

The names of noble sires. 
And slumbered while the darkness crept 

Around their vigil fires; 
But, aye, the Golden Horseshoe Knights 

Their old dominion keep, 
Whose foes have found enchanted 
ground. 

But not a knight asleep! 

From a member of the poet's 
family I learn that the story of " Lit- 

^^ LofC. 



2)r, fx^nk ©» tricfsnor. 

tie Giffen" is almost literally true. 
The poem is given entire : 

Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire; 
Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene, 
(Eighteenth battle and he sixteen!) — 
Specter, such as you seldom see, 
Little Gififen of Tennessee. 

"Take him and welcome!" the surgeon 

said; 
"Little the doctor can help the dead." 
So we took him and brought him where 
The balm was sweet in the summer air; 
And we laid him down on a wholesome 

bed- 
Utter Lazarus, heel to head! 

And we watched the war with abated 
\ breath — 

Skeleton boy against skeleton death. 
Months of torture, how many such? 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch; 
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die. 

And didn't. Nay, more, in death's de- 
spite 

The crippled skeleton "learned to 
write." 

"Dear mother," at first, of course; and 
then 

100 



2>r. ^ran!? ©, ^Icftnor. 



"Dear captain," inquiring about the 

men. 
Captain's answer: "Of eighty and five 
Giffen and I are left alive." 

Word of gloom from the war one day: 
Johnston pressed at the front, they say. 
Little Gififen was up and away; 
A tear — his first — as he bade good-bye, 
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye, 
"I'll write if spared!" There was news 

of the fight; 
But none of Gififen — he did not write. 

I sometimes fancy that, were I king 

Of the princely Knights of the Golden 

Ring, 
With the song of the minstrel in mine 

ear, 
And the tender legend that trembles 

here, 
I'd give the best on his bended knee, 
The whitest soul of my chivalry. 
For little Giffen of Tennessee. 

Maurice Thompson says: "If 
there is a finer lyric than this in the 
whole realm of poetry, I should be 
glad to read it." The subject of 
the poem was Isaac Giffen, the son 
of a blacksmith in some hamlet of 
101 



Dr. ftank Q, tlicftnor. 



East Tennessee. The boy was so 
childlike in appearance as to have 
seemed "borne by the tide of war 
from the cradle to the jaws of 
death." He was terribly wounded 
in some battle — perhaps Murfrees- 
boro — and carried with others to the 
hospital at Columbus, Ga. Here 
he was found by our humane doc- 
tor and borne to his home, ''where 
the air was balm." In the struggle 
of the "skeleton boy against skel- 
eton death" he was greatly aided 
by the skill of the doctor and the 
gentle nursing of Mrs. Ticknor. 
During the "weary weeks of the 
stick and crutch" he was taught to 
read and write by this lady. Being 
naturally bright, he is said to have 
learned very rapidly. He remained 
with the family about a year, but al- 
though he had been so fearfully 
shot to pieces, he was ever anxious 
to return to the service, which he 
did in time to fall, it is supposed, in 
some of the battles around Atlanta. 

102 



" He was an ordinary-looking lit- 
tle fellow," writes a son of the poet, 
"except that he had a bright, clear, 
blue eye that told of the incarnate 
courage of the boy." No soldier 
ever had a finer monument than lit- 
tle Giffen, though this poem is his 
only monument, and he was doubt- 
less buried in some of those ''un- 
known graves" where 

The voice of wail is mute to-day 
As his whose life is dumb. 

The poem was first published in 
November, 1867, in the Land We 
Love, a m.agazine published at Char- 
lotte, N. C, in which the editor, 
Gen. D. H. Hill, as Davidson said, 
kept up the contest pretty effective- 
ly for some time after the war. 

In 1879 Miss Kate Rowland, of 
Baltimore, edited a small volume of 
Ticknor's poems, in which this oc- 
curred much changed and im- 
proved. This volume was brought 
out by Lippincott five years after 
the poet's death, and omitted many 
103 



2)r. 3frank ©♦ Eic!^nor, 



of what the family consider the best 
poems. Another war poem Hayne 
calls ^'an absolutely perfect ballad." 
It has reference to the fall of Gen. 
Patrick R. Cleburne, in the battle 
fouo'ht near the close of the war in 

o 

the vicinity of Franklin, Tenn. Per- 
haps no battle of the war cost the 
South so many of her best soldiers, 
in proportion to the number en- 
gaged. Cleburne had seen a better 
way than to fight that battle, but 
was overruled by his commander. 
Though a son of Erin, he had com- 
mand of Tennessee troops, many of 
whom, as mere lads, had left their 
mothers and sweethearts nearly 
four years before. These boys were 
anxious to go home, "let fall what 
peril might." When the com- 
mander sent Cleburne against the 
well-manned works at Franklin, he 
smiled and said: "General, I will 
take the works or fall in the effort." 
After having two horses killed, he 
fell, rushing on the works. The 
104 



poem is entitled '' Loyal," and gives 
a picture of Douglas, dying in the 
effort to carry out the last wish of 
his master, Bruce. The Bruce had 
vowed a crusade, but being most of 
his life engaged against England in 
defense of his crown, as death ap- 
proached, he called the faithful 
Lord Douglas and asked that his 
heart might be carried to Jerusa- 
lem. Douglas fell amid the Sara- 
cens, endeavoring to accomplish 
what was to him a sacred behest. 
The poem might apply to any one 
who has fallen in an heroic attempt 
of high enterprise. 

The good Lord Douglas — dead of old-- 

In his last journeying 
Wore at his heart incased in gold 

The heart of Bruce his king, 

Through Payniin lands to Palestine— 

For so his troth was plight- 
To lay that gold on Christ his shrine 
Let fall what peril might. 

By night and day a weary way 
Of vigil and of fight, 
1*^ 105 



2)r. Jcanft ®. ^Iclinor. 



Where never rescue came by day, 
Nor ever rest by night. 

And one by one the valiant spears 
Were smitten from his side, 

And one by one the bitter tears 
Fell for the brave that died: 

Till fierce and black around his track 

He saw the combat close, 
And counted but the single sword 
Against uncounted foes. 

He drew the casket from his breast, 

He bared his solemn brow; 
O, foremost of the kingliest, 

Go first in battle now! 

Where leads the Lord of Bruce, the 
sword 

Of Douglas shall not stay! 
Forward! We meet at Christ His feet 

In paradise to-day! 

The casket flashed; the battle clashed, 
Thundered and rolled away; 

And dead above the heart of Bruce 
The heart of Douglas lay! 

Loyal! Methinks the antique mold 

Is lost, or theirs alone 
Who sheltered Freedom's heart of gold 

Like Douglas with their own ! 
106 



2)r, ^ranfi ©. c;ic?inor. 

While Ticknor's war songs were 
full of fire and verve, he was not 
alone or chiefly a war poet, but sang 
of friends and home with delightful 
charm. This was natural, since he 
loved his friends, and made his own 
home so beautiful. "An April 
Morning," " Twilight," " The Hills," 
"Among the Birds," "The Flow- 
ers," and many others, show that he 
saw things about him with a poet's 
eye — that the spirit of poesy often 
came down upon the grand doctor 
and decked all the dear familiar 
scenes with a halo of beauty. How 
much must such a man get out of 
life! He loved the beautiful, and 
portrayed it because he could not 
help it. He loved the heroic, hence 
martial fire leaped from his pen. 
What would have been to others a 
red-headed, freckle-faced, crippled 
soldier boy, was to him a hero, a 
knight of princely courage. Next 
to enacting great deeds and living 
great lives is the ability to under- 
107 



2)r. 3franft ©. G;icftnor^ 



stand and be lifted up by the great- 
ness and unselfishness of heroic hu- 
man souls. This man of heroic 
mold but womanly sweetness is 
himself a poem of precious beauty. 
The ideal life sparkles out through 
all his jeweled lines. The busy doc- 
tor died in the prime of life, and 
deep was the grief of his neighbors. 
He loved them, and they loved him, 
though they suspected not all his 
greatness of soul. He had lived his 
creed : 

The man with little love shall find 
But little loving in mankind; 

And one of feeble honor can 

By no means find an honest man! 

To win the Indies' wealth, lay out 
The Indies' worth, or thereabout. 

He had laid out for humanity ear- 
nest zeal and unselfish devotion. 
The son writes that the poem en- 
titled the "Farmer Man" gives a 
very good description of his father. 
But on this "Farmer Man" was not 
lost the beauty of 
108 



2)r. ftmxk ©. ^icknor. 



The yellow cornfields and the brown, 
nor of 

The woods whose autumn glories cheer 
The solemn sunset of the year. 

The description is half playful, but 
became wholly serious in the epi- 
taph : 

He read the Bible, loved his wife, 
And hated humbug all his life. 

The real description of this let- 
tered countryman is found in "Po- 
eta in Rure." After deprecating 
the fact that many found no more in 
life than 

To hold the sky in all its scope 
As one great weather sign, 

To toil athwart the vineyard's slope 
And never taste the wine, 

the poet puts forth the better way — 
the way that looks for more than 
the "dinner gong:" 

And one must count his labor naught. 

His harvest quite in vain. 
Who reared no blossoms when he 
wrought 
With summer on the plain, 
109 



lS>x* JFranft ©. ^icftnor* 



No garland of a golden thought 
To glorify his grain. 

Ticknor's love for children is 
shown in his child songs, fresh and 
playful. Of that kind, "Whip- 
poor-will" and the ''Echo Story" 
are among the most sprightly ever 
penned. Loved ones died, but to 
him they were immortal. He laid 
chaplets of bright flowers upon the 
fresh grave and found it spanned by 
a rainbow. In deep bereavement 
he could sing: 

The lily we love, it is whiter 

For the darkness that covers the day; 
The pearl of our souls, it is brighter 

For the shadows that turn to gray. 

Among his religious poems, the 
'''Beauty of Holiness," "Easter," 
and the "Church" are full of cheer- 
ful hope and redolent with sacred 
beauty. 

Many of the wealthy planters of 

the South, broken up by the war, 

removed to the cities. The typical 

Southern home of the old reo-zme 

110 



Wv, ftmli ©. ZTicftnoc. 

has about ceased to be. Many of 
the houses or halls, as they were 
sometimes called, are let to tenants, 
or else have fallen into a ruinous 
state. 

And slowly answered Arthur from the 

barge: 
"The old order changeth, yielding place 

to new, 
And God fulfills himself in many ways." 

Little did he dream that one 
poem was to be a prophecy ; but his 
children have abandoned the old 
homestead, and the "Hall" of the 
poem might tell its tale as well. 
The Eden of roses at "Torch Hill" 
has gone to negro tenants. 
There is dust on the doorway, there Is 

mold on the wall; 
There's a chill at the hearthstone, a hush 

through the hall; 
And the stately old mansion stands 

darkened and cold 
By the leal loving hearts that it shel- 
tered of old. 
No light at the lattice, no gleam from 
the door; 

111 



2)r. jfranft ©. G^icftnor, 



No feast on the table, no mirth on Its 

floor; 
But "glory departed" and silence alone. 
"Dust unto dust" upon pillar and stone. 

No carol at morning, no hymn rising 
clear; 

No song at the bridal nor chaunt at the 
Mer. 

All the chords of its symphonies scat- 
tered and riven ; 

Its altar in ashes, its incense in heaven ! 

His five sons have joined the ac- 
tive working forces of young men 
who are doing so much to push for- 
ward the material development of 
the South. Formerly planting and 
the professions engrossed the best 
energies of the people, but now sons 
of the South are found in every de- 
partment of work, whether of the 
hand or the head. The great pe- 
riodicals are open to aspiring gen- 
ius. With interest we watch the 
stars as they arise, yet some honor 
should be accorded to those who 
sang while the days were dark. Dr. 
Ticknor never had a picture taken, 
112 



Br. 3frank ©♦ ^icfmor* 



so far as his family knows. He was 
a man of medium height, rather 
slender, high forehead, dark hair, 
and blue eyes. He was a fine con- 
versationalist. 

How Ticknor came to write such 
sim.ple, graceful verse no one 
knows. We are constantly told 
that a literary center and a literary 
atmosphere are necessary to pro- 
duce literature. We see that Har- 
vard and William and Mary were 
largely the centers of thought in 
Revolutionary times; that around 
Boston sprang up the early liter- 
ature of New England; that the 
Southern Literary Messenger culmi- 
nated in such men as Kennedy, Poe, 
J. R. Thompson, St. George Tuck- 
er, Bagby, and the Cookes; that 
around Charleston were such men 
as Simms, Hayne, Timrod, Legare, 
and others. There was no center 
of thought at Columbus, Ga. Be it 
said for the encouragement of 
young people struggling along, 
l^-^ H 113 



Dr. jfranli ©. H^icftnor, 

alone, that Frank O. Ticknor's po- 
etry was not inferior to that of any 
of those named, and superior to 
most. Be it said further that Burns 
was at his best as a man and a sing- 
er before he was widely known. 
Solitude has often fostered genius 
which society would otherwise have 
dissipated. Let no one fear solitude 
and study. Suffice it to say that 
when the collection of his poems 
was published in 1879 ^Y J- ^- Lip- 
pincott the merit of some of these 
was a surprise to literary men. The 
genius of the writer commanded 
immediate respect in the small cir- 
cle which a small edition reached. 
While his range of poetic vision was 
not so extensive as that of some 
others, while he might resemble the 
old harpsichord of one unbroken 
string of which he sings, 

One chord in thy heart unbroken, 
One key to that chord alone, 

A touch, and thy thought hath spoken; 
A sigh, and thy song hath flown! 
114 



yet he had the true poetic insight. 
When the reckoning shall have been 
made, it will be found that this un- 
ostentatious country physician has 
made a permanent addition to 
American literature. 
115 



1benr^ Ilimrob, 

Zbc IHnfortunate Singer. 

The curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy in- 
nocent breast, 
And scared the angel soul that was its 
earthly guest. 

SHELLEY wrote these lines 
under the impression that 
the death of Keats was has- 
tened by bitter and unjust criticism 
of his works; that his life was, as 
Byron said, "snuffed out by an ar- 
ticle." 

Leigh Hunt was a liberal in pol- 
itics, hence Gifford, of the Quarterly 
Review, "pursued him like a wild 
beast." Keats had written a son- 
net in praise of Hunt, and was re- 
garded as his friend; so "the flower 
garden of Endymion, every rose of 
which was fed by the dews of Para- 
dise, was to be trampled upon with 
critical hoof." 

Not only was the poetry of Keats 
117 



f)enri2 c:imroD. 



assailed, but his profession, private 
affairs, and family as well. It has 
long been said that this so crushed 
the hopes and heart of his sensitive 
nature as to cause his death at the 
early age of twenty-five. This is 
now denied by English writers, but 
at any rate his hope ^'that after 
death he would be among the poets 
of England" was so blasted that he 
wrote for the epitaph under which 
he sleeps amid the ruins of Rome: 
"Here lies one whose name is writ 
in water." 

While the story of Keats has for 
years been considered the most pa- 
thetic in the history of modern lit- 
erature, the career of the Southern 
poet Timrod is a far more sorrow- 
ful one. Not mere party poliiics, 
but the rush of war and the swirl ot 
reconstruction broke to pieces his 
storm-beaten bark. The Nemesis 
of misfortune seemed to follow him 
from the cradle to the grave. Not 
only that, but he was mocked, Tan- 
118 



Ibens:^ ^ImroD. 



taluslike, with visions of choice 
fruit almost within his grasp and 
then blown forever beyond his 
reach by some "wind of destiny." 

Henry Timrod was born in 
Charleston, S. C, December 8. 
182Q. His father, Wihiam Tun- 
rod, though a bookbinder, Vv^rote 
good poetry. From his mother 
Henry inherited a love for nature. 
"Blue-eyed Harry's'' first misfor- 
tune was to lose his father at the 
age of eight. Young Timrod was 
twenty-three days older than his life- 
time friend, Hayne. Being school- 
mates of similar tastes, a friend- 
ship was then formed, marked by 
its tenderness, which continued un- 
til the death of Timrod, October 6. 
1867. The interest of Hayne did 
not cease even then. 

In 1872 E. J. Hale & Son, of New 
York, brought out "Timrod's Po- 
ems, Edited, with a Sketch of the 
Poet's Life, by Paul H. Hayne." 
And it is a matchless sketch! No 
119 



'S3cnr^ S^imroD* 



higher tribute of love has ever been 
bestowed upon one literary man by 
another. This volume reached two 
editions, the second containing 
some "additional poems" not found 
in the first. Whoever writes of 
Timrod hereafter must be largely 
debtor to this memoir by Hayne. 
Through his bosom friend the in- 
most thoughts of the poet can be 
read. 

Hayne says of the Charleston 
school: "My seat being next to his, 
I v^rell remember the exultation with 
which he showed me one morning 
his earliest consecutive attempt at 
verse making. Our down East 
schoolmaster, however, could boast 
of no turn for sentiment, and hav- 
ing remarked us hobnobbing, mean- 
ly assaulted us in the rear, effectual- 
ly quenching for the time all aes- 
thetic enthusiasm." The voice of 
the Muse proved louder than the 
twang of the birch. Another teach- 
er, who really knew and appreciated 
120 



the boy - poet, describes him as 
''modest and diffident, with a nerv- 
ous utterance, but with melody ever 
in his heart and on his lips. Though 
always slow of speech, he was yet, 
like Burns, quick to learn. The 
chariot wheels might jar in the 
gates through which he tried to 
drive his winged steeds, but the 
horses were of celestial temper, and 
the car of purest gold." 

To love running streams, waving 
fields, and deep blue skies does not 
make one a poet, but without this 
there can be no poet of the Burns, 
Wordsv/orth, or Timrod type. 
Though born in the dusty, pent-up 
city, he loved and longed for the 
country instead. That was indeed 
a poetic temperament that could 
confidently look for a blue - eyed 
d^yad to step forth from a budding 
beech and proclaim herself May. 

When about sixteen or seventeen 
he entered the University of Geor- 
gia. There "he reveled in the ele- 
121 



gant art of Virgil, and of the grace 
of Horace and Catullus he never 
wearied. From the fountain of 
English letters he quaffed unceas- 
ingly." While in college he wrote 
verses, mainly in praise of bright 
eyes and golden hair or some such 
loveliness. Some of these, pub- 
lished over a fictitious signature in 
a Charleston paper, had local fame ; 
and in one instance the verse was 
set to music, much to the delight of 
the author. 

Ill health and poverty forced him 
from school without his degree. 
Then began the grim and hard- 
fought battle with the fates. The 
^'tide in the affairs of men, which, 
taken at flood, leads on to fortune," 
never came to him. On the con- 
trary, all his voyage "was bound in 
shallows and in miseries." He 
read law for a while under that dis- 
tinguished jurist, James L. Peti- 
gru, but was lured more by music 
heard far up the "Aonian Mount." 
122 



In 1848-49, under the nom de 
plume of *'Aglaiis," he began a se- 
ries of contributions to the Southern 
Literary Messenger, of Richmond, 
Va., then edited by the scholar and 
poet, John R. Thompson. One 
piece, "The Past," went the rounds 
and attracted so much attention as 
to give the susceptible mind of Tim- 
rod great encouragement. 

Soon after he abandoned the law 
altogether. ~ Judge Br}^an said: 
"Tinirod was too wholly a poet to 
keep company long with so relent- 
less, rugged, and exacting a mis- 
tress as the law." It was not that. 
The poet v/as possessed by that 
spirit which would not let Csedmon 
rest until he should sing, and which 
has so often driven the literary man 
to work through hardship and pri- 
vation, even unto death. The ris- 
ing poet entered anew upon the 
study of the classics to fit himself 
for a professorship in college, that 
he might support himself by teach- 
123 



ing until he should get well up the 
steeps of Parnassus. No professor- 
ship came, and for some years he 
was teacher in the household of a 
planter, Mr. Murray Robinson, of 
Orangeburg. He was doubtless 
ofttimes stirred by visions of what 
might be beyond his shut-in Ras- 
selas-like sphere, but continued ex- 
ercising his imagination in writing, 
dimly conscious of his extraordi- 
nary powers. 

William Gilmore Simms was ac- 
customed to gather at his home in 
Charleston the younger literary 
men of his acquaintance and discuss 
with them art and letters. On such 
occasions the idea of a monthly 
magazine as an exponent of South- 
ern literature originated. It was 
c^lltd Russcirs Magazine, from John 
Russell, a noted bookseller, who be- 
came publisher. Paul H. Haync 
\vas the editor. To this monthly 
and to that larger venture, the 
Southern Quarterly Reviezv, is due, 
124 



perhaps, the fact that South Caro- 
Hna had more literary men before 
the war than any Southern State, 
not even excepting Virginia. Many 
of Timrod's best poems were com- 
posed for Russeirs. 

In i860 the best of his poems 
were put forth in a small volume 
published by Ticknor & Fields, 
Boston. Hayne says: "A better 
first volume of the kind seldom ap- 
peared anywhere." 

Southern editors and a few 
Northern critics did not hesitate to 
give commendation. The Nezv 
York Tribune especially predicted 
for the author wider fame. The 
volume must have won its way to 
general favor but for the war that 
blighted so many hopes. In 1861 
he began that flaming series of war 
poems which were so. popular at 
the South then, and which after the 
war, perhaps, helped to hedge up 
his way at the North. Among his 
war Ivrics, "A Cry to Arms" and 
125 



"Carolina" have hardly been sur- 
passed in fervor and strength. 

At the close of 1862 friends ar- 
ranged to bring out in London a 
finely illustrated edition of the poet's 
works. Fame seemed at the door. 
Tim rod was jubilant, but it was 
only one of the moc kings of for- 
tune. 

The sound of conflict deepened 
apace, the friends forgot the 
scheme, and the poet had no means 
to carry it out. He became war 
correspondent of the Charleston 
Mercury soon after the battle of 
Shiloh. Later he settled at Colum- 
bia as associate editor of the South 
Carolinian. Success seemed to 
draw near, and he was enabled to 
carry out his long-deferred purpose 
of marriage with the English girl, 
Miss Kate Goodwin, the '^ Katie'' 
of one of his longest and finest po- 
ems. Early in 1864 he took his 
bride to his humble home. In 
twelve months and a day Sherman 
126 



I>enri2 ZlimtoD. 



came, his paper was destroyed, and 
himself a fugitive. Then came, as 
he describes it, "beggary, starva- 
tion, death, bitter grief, utter want 
of hope," for his little Willie, the 
child so fully idolized, had died. 

His brother-in-law had died, and 
his sister, with her children, was left 
to his support. The furniture and 
tableware were sold for bread. He 
went to Charleston and wrote edi- 
torials for a concern which in the 
end was never able to pay. He 
tried to sell his poems. The East- 
ern magazines bought poorer in- 
stead. Had he not sung the " Eth- 
nogenesis" when a new flag was 
unfurled? The memory of the san- 
guinary fields over which that flag 
had floated was too fresh! 

The only thing Timrod could 
find to do now was merely clerical 
work in Columbia. On more than 
one occasion he wrote in the Gov- 
ernor's office from ten o'clock one 
morning until sunrise the next. 
127 



Even this relief from want was only 
temporary, as the employment was 
not permanent. An invitation from 
a publisher to visit the North and 
meet the literati, with a hint of 
bringing out a volume of his po- 
ems, gave a flitting hope that the 
angry fates would now become 
placated: but no! they seemed, as 
Hayne intimates, at times to relent 
only to return grimmer than before. 
Funds for the trip could not be 
raised! In the distracted and un- 
certain condition of the South fol- 
lowing the war there was literally 
nothing open to a man of such slen- 
der means and insufficient physical 
ability as Timrod. At that time 
could he have made the acquaint- 
ance of the literary men of the East, 
the tide might have been changed 
and his life prolonged. The gaunt 
specter of want might at last have 
been driven from his door. 

In August of 1867, under orders 
from his doctor to change air, and 
128 



Ibenr^ ilimroD. 



in hope of seeing some new books 
— something that he could not af- 
ford to buy — he spent a month with 
Hayne at his httle home amid the 
pines of Georgia. 

He yielded himself fully to the 
companionship of his friend and 
the joy of a few choice books, but, 
too soon for his health, he returned 
home to find, as he said, "his folks 
out of money and provisions." The 
acceptance of some of his work by 
publishers drove off the wolf for the 
time. Success v/ould doubtless 
have come with the improvement of 
the times, but the struggle had al- 
ready been too much for him. In 
September one hemorrhage fol- 
lowed another until in October he 
died, and at the very hour when 
day "purples in the zenith," as he 
had written years before. 

Somewhere on this earthly planet, 
In the dust of flowers to be. 

In the dewdrop, in the sunshine, 
Sleeps a solemn day for me. 
I 129 



As it purples in the zenith, 
As it brightens on the lawn, 

There's a hush of death about me, 
And a whispered: "He is gone." 

Hayne says: "His compositions, 
with all their elegance, finish, and 
superb propriety of diction, always 
leave the impression of having been 
born, not manufactured nor made." 
This spontaneity is warmly praised 
by Richardson in his recent work 
on American literature. Lanier 
calls his "one of the very sweetest 
names connected with Charleston." 

Col. J. G. James calls him the 
"sv/eetest singer of the South." 
Richard Henry Stoddard has fre- 
quently referred to Timrod as the 
ablest poet the South has yet pro- 
duced. Mrs. Preston says: "The 
South has probably never pro- 
duced a poet of more delicate imag- 
ination, of greater rhythmic sweet- 
ness, of purer sentiment, and more 
tender emotion than this young 
man, who passed away before he 
had time or opportunity to attain 
130 



tbcnx^ ^imroD. 



that high standard of excellence 
which his undoubted genius fitted 
liim to reach." 

While the heart of the singer was 
bleeding, breaking, his songs had 
no "whining complaint," but v/ere 
fresh and pure as the springtime 
dews and flowers. This volume of 
poems is not large, and — a burning 
shame to the South — is out of print, 
but it is one which every lover of 
good poetry must delight to handle. 
It would have been larger if times 
had been more propitious. In his 
days of almost utter want he wrote, 
"I would consign every line of it to 
eternal oblivion for one hundred dol- 
lars in hand. ''Why Silent" tells 
the same sad story: 

Why am I silent from year to year? 
Needs must I sing on these blue 
March days? 
What will you say, when I tell you here. 
That already, I think, for a little 
praise, 

I have paid too dear? 
131 



So my butterfly - dreams their golden 
wings 
But seldom unfurl from their chrys- 
alis, 
And thus I retain my loveliest things, 
While the world, in its worldliness, 
does not miss 

What a poet sings. 

How much those "blue March 
days" cost the world! 

Although the murky clouds of 
war cast their shadows over him, 
till hope itself seemed forever fled, 
the dewy freshness of the morning 
lay upon his fragrant flowers of 
song. The true poet is always 
larger than his environments — 
soars beyond his pent - up circum- 
stances. 

•^ Many of Timrod's shorter poems 
must charm a wider circle at no 
distant day. No more graceful 
coinbi nation of playful sentiment 
and felicity of poetic expression can 
be found than in the beauty and 
freshness of 

132 



The Lily Confidante. 

Lily! lady of the garden! 

Let me press my lip to thine! 
Love must tell its stor}^ Lily ! 

Listen thou to mine. 

Two I choose to know the secret — 
Thee, and yonder wordless flute ; 

Dragons watch me, tender Lily, 
And thou must be mute. 

There's a maiden, and her name is . . 

Hist! was that a rose leaf fell? 
See, the rose is listening, Lily, 

And the rose may tell. 

Lily-browed and lily-hearted. 

She is very dear to me; 
Lovely? yes, if being lovely 

Is — resembling thee. 

Six to half a score of summers 

Make the sweetest of the "teens" — 

Not too young to guess, dear Lily, 
What a lover means. 

Laughing girl, and thoughtful woman, 
I am puzzled how to woo — 

Shall I praise or pique her, Lily? 
Tell me what to do. 

"Silly lover, if thy Lily 
Like her sister lilies be, 
133 



Ibenrg aimroD. 

Thou must woo, if thou wouldst wear 
her, 
With a simple plea. 

Love's the lover's only magic, 

Truth the very subtlest art; 
Love that feigns, and lips that flatter. 

Win no modest heart. 

Like the dewdrop in my bosom, 
Be thy guileless language, youth; 

Falsehood buyeth falsehood only, 
Truth must purchase truth. 

As thou talkest at the fireside. 
With the little children by— - 

As thou prayest in the darkness. 
When thy God is nigh — 

With a speech as chaste and gentle. 
And such meanings as become 

Ear of child or ear of angel. 
Speak, or be thou dumb. 

Woo her thus, and she shall give thee 
Of her heart the sinless whole, 

All the girl within her bosom, 
And her woman's soul." 

Keats lived to publish his poems, 
but what a joy it would have been 
134 



Ibenri? ^imroD, 

to Timrod to have seen even the 
Httle volume brought out after his 
death ! 

If disappointed hopes, wounded 
pride, and crushed sensibilities 
wrought such dire result upon 
Keats as to excite the world's sym- 
pathy, be it remembered that Tim- 
rod suffered all these added to fierce 
want and the consciousness that his 
misfortunes were shared by those 
dear as life itself, whose every suf- 
fering but added to the intensity of 
his own pangs. He could not even 
provoke a notice from a pozverfnl re- 
Z'iezv. 

In the publication of the poems it 
is to be presumed that Hayne fol- 
lowed, as far as possible, the order 
taken by Timrod for the volume 
which was to have been Issued in 
London. The dedication to "K. 
S. G." can easily be read "Kate S. 
Goodwin." The second poem, yet 
longer, is to "Katie." 

Timrod's Katie had come from 
135 



England in i860 with her father, 
who came for his health. He died 
soon after, and she remained with 
her brother, the husband of Tim- 
rod's sister. The two were thus 
thrown much together, and the poet 
celebrated their love in poetry, the 
imagery of which might well vie 
with the "flower garden" of Keats. 
The poem is hurt by taking a part, 
but this will at least give some idea 
of the method and measure. The 
thought of Katie carried him to En- 
gland. 

I meet her on the dusty street, 
And daisies spring about her feet; 
Or touched to life beneath her tread, 
An English cowslip lifts its head; 
And, as to do her grace, rise up 
The primrose and the buttercup ! 
I roam with her through fields of cane, 
And seem to stroll an English lane. 
Which, white with blossoms of the May, 
Spreads its green carpet in her way! 
As fancy wills, the path beneath 
Is golden gorse or purple heath; 
And now we hear in woodlands dim 
Their unarticulated hymn, 
136 



•fcenrie tlimroD. 



Now walk through ripphng waves of 

wheat, 
Now sink in mats of clover sweet. 
Or see before us from the lawn 
The lark go up to greet the dawn ! 
All birds that love the English sky 
Throng round my path when she is by; 
The blackbird from a neighboring thorn 
With music brims the cup of morn, 
And in a thick, melodious rain 
The mavis pours her mellow strain! 
But only when my Katie's voice 
Makes all the listening v/oods rejoice 
I hear, with cheeks that flush and pale. 
The passion of the nightingale! 

E. J. Hale & Son published an 
illustrated edition of "Katie" in 
1884. Thus do belated dreams 
come true. 

Many of his poems have shining 
gems set within them, but "Rose- 
buds" is itself a perfect gem. The 
poet pours his soul into "Our Wil- 
lie," which celebrates his Willie — 
his "single rosebud in a crown of 
thorns." The "Cotton Boll" was 
in his hands something of what 
" Corn" was later to Sidney Lanier. 
137 



Wordsworth has been regarded as 
the out-of-doors poet, and no doubt 
Timrod took lessons from Words- 
worth as he did later from Tenny- 
son; but no brighter vision than 
Timrod's ''Spring" ever came to 
"Rydal Mount.'' This has long 
been considered a trite subject, but 
where is anything in any of these 
poets fresher than these stanzas? 

Spring, with that nameless pathos in 
the air 

Which dwells with all things fair; 

Spring, with her golden suns and sil- 
ver rain. 

Is with us once again. 

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine 

burns 
Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
Into a royal court with green festoons 
The banks of dark lagoons. 

In the deep heart of every forest tree 
The blood is all aglee, 
And there's a look about the leafless 
bowers 

As if they dreamed of flowers. 

138 



I&enrs <ClmcoD. 

As yet the turf is dark, although you 

know 
That, not a span below, 
A thousand germs are groping through 

the gloom, 
And soon will burst their tomb. 

Already, here and there, on frailest 

stems 
Appear some azure gems, 
Small as might deck upon a gala day. 
The forehead of a fay. 

But many gleams and shadows need 

must pass 
Along the budding grass. 
And weeks go by before the enamored 

South 
Shall kiss the rose's mouth. 

Still there's a sense of blossoms yet un- 
born 
In the sweet airs of morn: 
One almost looks to see the very street 
Grow purple at his feet. 

At times a fragrant breeze comes float- 
ing by. 
And brings — you know not why — 
A feeling as when eager crowds await 
Before a palace gate 
139 



Some wondrous pageant; and you 

scarce would start, 
If from a beech's heart 
A blue -eyed Dryad, stepping forth, 

should say: 
"Behold me! I am May!" 

His most ambitious effort is "A 
Vision of Poesy." The metrical 
form is that of Spencer in his 'Ws- 
trophel" and Shakespeare in his 
'^ Venus and Adonis." It is a story 
of the mental progress of a youth 
with brilliant poetic genius, but 
mistaken views of art and life. The 
hero finds his ideals shattered, and 
suiters "sickness of soul," but 
combes at last to the philosophy of 
the concluding lines. 

Thy life hath not been wholly without 
use, 
Albeit that use is partly hidden now; 
In thy unmingled scorn of any truce 
With this world's specious falsehoods, 
often thou 
Hast uttered, through some all un- 
worldly song, 
Truths that for man might else have 
slumbered long. 
140 



•fcenris Q:tmroD» 

And therefore, though thy name shall 

pass away, 
Even as a cloud that hath wept all its 

showers, 
Yet as that cloud shall live again one 

day 
In the glad grass, and in the happy 

flowers. 
So in thy thoughts, though clothed in 

sv/eeter rhymes, 
Thy life shall bear its flowers in future 

times. 

As an admirer of Wordsworth he 
naturally employed and defended 
the sonnet. Some of these, if well 
known, would rank high. One is 
given : 

Life ever seems as from its present site 
It aimed to lure to us. Mountains of 

the past 
It melts with all their crags and caverns 

vast. 
Into a purple cloud! Across the night, 
Which hides what is to be, it shoots a 

light 
All rosy with the yet unrisen dawn. 
Not the near daisies, but yon distant 

height 

141 



Dentin ^TimroD. 

Attracts us, lying on this emerald lawn. 
And always, be the landscape what it 

may — 
Blue, misty hill or sweep of glimmering 

plain — 
It is the eye's endeavor still to gain 
The fine, faint limit of the bounding day. 
God, haply, in this mysti: mode, would 

fain 
Hint of a happier home far, far away! 

Of the sonnet he said: "Brief as 
the sonnet is, the whole power of a 
poet has sometimes been exempli- 
fied within its narrow bounds as 
completely as within the compass 
of an epic! Thought is independ- 
ent of space, and it would hardly 
be an exaggeration to say that the 
poet — the minister of thought — 
enjoys an equal independence. To- 
day his stature reaches the sky; to- 
morrow he will shut himself up in 
the bell of a tulip or the cup of a 
lily." 

Timrod died at the age of thirty- 
eight. He had hoped to do much 
more. In fact, he felt just before 
142 



I)cnri2 EimroD. 

his last sickness that he had "fall- 
en into a strain of such pure and 
delicate fancies." But he passed 
on to drink, as he said in his last 
hour, "of the water of eternal life." 

His grave is at Columbia, S. C. 
Much of his work fulfills the most 
exacting conditions of good poetry. 
His name is beginning to find a 
place in all the treatises on Ameri- 
can literature. Let us hope that 
the next edition of his poems shall 
be issued in the near future, and 
that it shall be that "finely illus- 
trated and embellished edition'' 
which the poet so longed to see. 

In fact, a Memorial Committee is 
now at work in the endeavor to 
build a state monument to the poet. 
A part of their plan is to issue an 
edition de luxe of Timrod's poems. 

Why did this ill - starred genius 
so continuously drink the bitterest 
dregs of failure? There may have 
been some personal elements in the 
problem from the first— there sure- 
143 



l)enrg ^(mroD. 



ly were later on — but chiefly the 
times were at fault. Matthew Ar- 
nold says of Gray: "Born in the 
same year with Milton, Gray would 
have been another man; born in the 
same year with Burns, he would 
have been another man." *'A sort 
of spiritual east wind was at that 
time blowing." Charleston was a 
sort of Southern Boston, but 
through ail of Timrod's years 
Charleston had questions more im- 
mediately pressing than literature. 
Howbeit, literature calls many and 
crowns few. The victims of disap- 
pointment abound in all lands. The 
North gave Charles Brockden 
Brown, and in large measure Haw- 
thorne; the South, Poe and Tim- 
rod. But a conjunction of mishaps 
beyond his control marred all Tim- 
rod's path, even in pursuits more 
prosaic than literature. Despite 
early disadvantages, he fitted him- 
self for a professorship in college, 
only to find the places filled in many 
144 



instances by men of prosier turn, 
with far less magnetism; he ac- 
quired a happy style as newspaper 
writer, but all the papers on which 
he was employed failed; he waited 
long before assuming the responsi- 
bility of maintaining the Kate of his 
brightest dreams, only to find that 
death had given him manifold 
greater responsibilities; at the last 
he took to politics and offered him- 
self as Messenger of the South Car- 
olina House of Representatives, 
only to receive eleven out of ninety 
votes. Perhaps his success then 
could not have redeemed the past, 
but only have added misfortune to 
misfortunes. His life was like the 
"ghost of a song" by which he says 
he was haunted, "the shade of a 
lay" which, he says, "I seem to be 
catching, but never have caught." 

Of the poet's personal appear- 
ance Dr. Bruns says: "In stature 
Timrod was far below the medium 
height. He had always excelled in 
10 J 145 



boyish sports, and as he grew to 
manhood his unusual breadth of 
shoulder still seemed to indicate a 
physical vigor which the slender 
wrists, thin, transparent hands, and 
habitually lax attitude but too plain- 
ly contradicted. The square jaw 
was almost stern in its strongly pro- 
nounced lines, the mouth large, the 
lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray 
eyes set deeply under massive 
brows, and full of a melancholy and 
pleading tenderness, which attract- 
ed attention to his face at once, as 
the face of one who had thought 
and suffered much." 

As to Timrod's seriousness of 
purpose in poetry, one cannot do 
better than to quote Hayne: ''Were 
one to sum up the idiosyncrasies of 
Timrod's genius and poetic manner, 
I think that it would be just to no- 
tice in the first place the simplicity, 
clearness, purity, and straightfor- 
ward force of his imagination,which 
within its appointed bounds (and 
146 



these limitations are as strictly 
marked as its vivid capabilities 
themselves) is always a true en- 
chanter, not owning the slightest 
relation to that mechanical faculty 
so commonly confounded with im- 
agination, which, instead of evolv- 
ing its material out of the heart of 
its own electric being, is content to 
work from without, piling up a te- 
dious catalogue of qualities, wheth- 
er its attempts be directed toward 
description merely, or toward the 
subtleties of spiritual analysis. Thus 
it liappens that Timrod's produc- 
tions carry with them always *a 
firm body of thought.' They do 
not appeal, like too many of Edgar 
Poe's, to our sense of rhythmic har- 
mony alone; nor are they charming, 
but mystic utterances in the heart of 
the visionary dreamer. No! Be- 
neath the surface of his delicate im- 
agery and rhythmic sweetness of 
numbers rest deeply imbedded the 
'golden ores of wisdom.' 'While 
147 



•fcenrs ^imroD. 

other poets, the curled darUngs of 
Fortune,' were, hke Master Ste- 
phen, deliberately procuring 'stools 
to be melancholy upon,' ostenta- 
tiously showing themselves 'sad 
as night for very wantonness,' he 
whose pains were only too real, into 
whose soul the iron had deeply en- 
tered, could forget himself in his di- 
vine art, and sing for us many a 
strain as fresh and breezy as the 
west wind 'laden with woodland 
fragrance,' as healthfully inspirit- 
ing as the breath of a May morn- 
ing)" 

148 



Milliam (Bilmore Simms* 

A LEARNED scribe, a willing 
public, an auspicious hour — 
all may be valuable concomi- 
tants to the production of felicitous 
literature, but these of themselves 
are not sufficient. Often the learn- 
ing of 'the scribe serves only to 
make the dulness more apparent. 
The informing spirit of genius 
must breath upon aptly chosen ma- 
terial, vivifying the whole with that 
indefinable something which must 
not be wanting, but which can nei- 
ther be defined nor imparted by any 
rule known to man. The maker of 
literature which shall enlarge the 
capacity and feeling of the world 
must be in what he writes, of what 
he writes — yea, more, his master- 
piece must be the fulness of himself, 
that the experiences of his life may 
149 



■Milliam (5ilmoce Simms* 



fructify and enlarge the experience 
of his race. The adage "Art is 
long " expresses only half a truth, 
for true art is limitless in space as 
well as eternal ; it speaks and shall 
ever continue to speak to the na- 
tions as they rise. No aspiration 
can be so high as that which bids a 
mortal become an oracle to his age, 
and through his age to all ages — a 
Prometheus bearing the sacred fire 
of heaven to men. 

On a midsummer evening in 1847 
a large audience had assembled in 
the theater in Charleston to hear 
some of the most distinguished ora- 
tors of that time upon the then vi- 
tal subject of the Mexican war. 
The American eagle soared and 
screamed or drooped his pinions in 
turn as eloqtience or platitudes pre- 
vailed, until at length a cry was 
raised for " Simms, Gilmore Simms." 
Paul H. Hayne, a youth of seven- 
teen, was in the crowd, and has de- 
scribed his first sight of Simms. In 
150 



IHauitam ©ilmoce Slmms. 



his "Ante - Bellum Charleston" 
Hayne says : " I felt a thrill of ex- 
citement and delighted expectation, 
for, like most lads of any fancy or 
taste for reading, I reverenced lit- 
erary genius ; and having already 
been fascinated by some of Simms's 
novels, I had long desired to see the 
author. He now came forward 
with a slow, stately step, under the 
full blaze of the chandeliers, a man 
in the prime of life, tall, vigorous, 
and symmetrically formed. His 
head was a noble one, with a con- 
spicuously high forehead, finely de- 
veloped in the regions of ideality, 
and set upon broad shoulders in 
haughty, leonine grace. Under 
strangely mobile eyebrows flashed 
a pair of bluish-gray eyes, keen and 
bright as steel. His mouth, slightly 
prominent, especially in the upper 
lip, was a wonderfully firm one, 
only less determined in fact than 
the massive jaw and chin which 
might have been molded out of 
151 



Milliam ©ilmore Slmms. 



iron. An impressive personality, 
likely to catch and hold one's ob- 
servation anywhere, he paused near 
the footlights, rapidly glanced about 
him for an instant, and then began 
his speech with a bold, startling 
paradox. Everybody's attention was 
sharply arrested, and to the end of 
his address as closely retained." 

Simms, then forty-one years old, 
was already the author of more than 
two dozen volumes, many of which 
had been largely read, and some 
had reached several editions. The 
aristocratic and conservative old 
city of Charleston had been some- 
what slow to admit him into its ex- 
clusive circles, had waited perhaps 
for recognition to come from abroad 
before simple justice was done at 
home, but at last the honor due a 
successful author had been largely 
accorded by his own people. When 
a drug clerk turns author anywhere 
he must prove his right to the lau- 
rel wreath before he may be per- 
152 



TKHtniam ©Umoce Simms. 



mitted to feel its inspiring touch 
upon his brow. This has always 
been true ; it will be true until the 
end of time. The very difficulty of 
such achievement had made it the 
more desirable to the indomitable na- 
ture of Simms, when he, a rising 
young lawyer, had turned aside from 
the bar with a full determination to 
overcome all barriers in the way to 
this very success. The home-com- 
ing prophet seldom hears the boom 
of welcoming cannon, or sees the 
flags thrown to the breeze in his 
honor, but Simms had little real cause 
for complaint. He had entered the 
field with inadequate educational 
equipment and without strong 
friends. In his early manhood he 
had edited the only paper in the 
state opposed to nullification, and 
had thus stood with a minority 
against an excited and almost 
revolutionary majority, yet when 
Simms first met the eager, boy- 
ish eyes of Hayne he was a prom- 
153 



llClUliam (3ilmore Simms* 



inent figure in the intellectual field 
of a city distinguished for men emi- 
nent in classical attainments. His 
home people read his books then ; 
they read them yet. A resident of 
Charleston writes that his works 
are largely read in that city, and 
that set after set are worn out by 
use in the public library. 

Much of the world's best fiction 
has been produced since William Gil- 
more Simms published " Martin Fa- 
ber," in 1833. Not only that, but 
the fashion of fiction has changed 
both as to subjects and style. Some 
assert that even Scott's fame is on 
the wane, while it is certain that 
Cooper holds little of the kingdom 
in which he once reigned supreme. 
He who held men in thrall in the 
youth of our literature has now be- 
come companion for boys. Kenne- 
dy's " Swallow Barn," published 
about the same date as Simms's 
first novel, was until recently out of 
print. Tales of adventure with his- 
15-1 



William (3ilmoce Simms. 



torical basis gave way to novels of 
passion. In fixing the place of 
Simms, the drawback to his fame is 
that his works must be compared 
with the present vintage of fiction. 
Much poorer work than some of 
his is read and praised because it 
suits the taste of the times. It is 
not to make a critical estimate of his 
position in literature that this sketch 
is prepared, but only to show some- 
thing of the part which he, in com- 
n\on with others, took in a faith- 
ful, intelligent effort to create a lit- 
erature for the Southern States of 
the Union. 

The year 1821, in which Haw- 
thorne and Longfellow entered 
college, has been designated as 
the time in which " a distinctive 
American literature began to ap- 
pear." Irving's " Sketch-Book" was 
already two years old, but at the 
date named appeared Bryant's first 
volume of poems. Cooper's " Spy," 
Dana's " Idle Man," and PercivaFs 
155 



TKauUam Gilmore Simms. 



first volume of poems, which Ed- 
ward Everett, with the usual mis- 
take of a contemporary, hailed as 
" the harbinger of a golden day." 
The second generation of writers, 
so to speak, came on at the North 
as contemporaries of Simms. But 
the two sections had begun to drift 
apart, and the best talent of the 
South was set for defense, and re- 
sented such criticisms as certain 
New England writers seemed dis- 
jDosed to make. The result was that 
these later Northern vv^riters did not 
come into much favor at the South 
until after the war. Simms early 
felt that the larger defense of his 
section consisted in the creation of 
a literature, while most of his 
contemporaries thought the task 
committed to the orators alone. 
Thus Simms, the first of his genera- 
tion in the South, came to be set 
against the second generation of 
writers at the North. 

America has produced one novel- 
156 



•QBlilliam (Silmore Simms. 



ist whose name is entitled to be 
mentioned among the five best of 
English literature. It is needless to 
say that this is Hawthorne. Others 
have been read more extensively for 
the time, but their fame has proved 
ephemeral. Hawthorne was not 
half so well known while living as 
was Cooper, nor did his permanent 
place seem so well assured. The 
precursor of all these was Charles 
Brockden Brown. He was the first 
American who undertook to support 
himself by literature alone. Brown 
was editor as well as novelist. As 
in the case of Poe, there was little 
local or even national flavor in his 
gruesome stories. Hardly anything 
so dark and tragical had ever been 
written. A pall of midnight was 
spread over his scenes. Hawthorne 
borrowed much of his coloring, but 
Poe reveled in it and, by comparison, 
turned Brown's pictures into insig- 
nificance. Irving, with his Addi- 
sonian style and sprightly sketches, 
157 



'BClilliam 61lmore Simms. 



was the first to elevate American 
prose to British notice. Lounsbury 
tells us that in those days a thing: 
must first be praised in England in 
order to receive attention at all in 
America. Cooper was induced to 
write a second novel because his 
first had received a few favorable 
notices in the mother country. In 
fact, in his first venture, the author 
was thought to be an Englishman. 
Nevertheless, James Fenimore 
Cooper was the first American 
writer who relied chiefl}^ on Ameri- 
can scenes and American person- 
ages. While no positive informa- 
tion seems to be at hand on that 
subject, we may at least suppose 
that the success of Cooper on the 
lines of personal adventure and in 
portraying, or rather idealizing, the 
native ' Indian had its influence on 
Simms in his choice of themes. 
Personal adventures In the French 
and Indian War, daring feats by 
scout and soldier during the Revo- 
158 



IKIlilliam (Bilmore Simms. 



lution, the pathetic and watchful 
but hopeless courage with which the 
native chiefs sought to resist the ad- 
vancing paleface — these had been 
found to lend themselves readily to 
fiction Not only was this true, but 
numerous readers had attested their 
interest in these subjects. Even in 
England people had read and praised 
a sea novel written by Cooper, the 
American, with Paul Jones as hero. 
What Cooper had done for the 
traditions of the North Simms 
sought to do in some due measure 
for those of the South, rich as it 
was, and is yet, in material for the 
writer of historical romance. From 
the days of De Soto's wonderful 
march until the tribes were removed 
west of the Mississippi, the Indian 
had been an ever-present factor in 
all struggles between his paleface 
brothers, as well as a romantic actor 
on his own account. The partisan 
conflicts in the South during the 
Revolution, often resulting in brave 
159 



WiUiam <5Umore Simms. 



encounters between a few individu- 
als, made inviting themes for the 
thrilling narrator. 

Cooper, the novelist of the North- 
ern border, was seventeen years old, 
and John P. Kennedy, the author of 
" Swallow Barn," " Horseshoe Rob- 
inson," and other tales of the Old 
Dominion, was eleven years old 
when William Gilmore Simms ^vas 
born. That event happened at 
Charleston, S. C, April 17, 1806. 
His mother died when he was an 
infant, and his father went to Ten- 
nessee and finally enlisted as a sol- 
dier to fight the Indians ; hence 
young Simms \vas left to the care 
of his maternal grandmother, while 
his father campaigned with Jackson 
or roamed over what ^vas then the 
West. That father w'as himself a 
lover of adventure, with power to 
depict in strong colors his varied 
experiences. The older Simms set- 
tled in Mississippi after many wan- 
derings, and thence made a futile ef- 
160 



•Qmmiam (3ilmore Simms* 



fort to obtain possession of his son 
William ; but the decision of the 
matter was left to the boy, who 
naturally preferred to remain with 
the grandmother, whom he knew, 
rather than go to the father, who 
was so nearly a stranger. At eight- 
een the young man sought out his 
father's Western home and re- 
mained long enough to become well 
acquainted with the thrilling inci- 
dents which his father narrated so 
graphically. This visit may have 
had much to do in shaping the final 
direction of the young man's mind 
as to choice of subjects for his pen. 
The father attempted by strenuous 
persuasions and glowing prospects 
of future advancement to detain the 
embryo novelist, since he thought 
that the newer Mississippi offered 
more to a young man than the older 
South Carolina, and especially 
Charleston, with its old families and 
civilization set in grooves. At a 
later time the younger Simm^s v^as 
11 K 161 



THailUam (3ilmoce Simms. 



accustomed to say that his fortune 
might have been made had he taken 
his father's advice and followed the 
law in Mississippi. In fact, in 
" Norman Maurice," a drama writ- 
ten many years later, he represents 
what was perhaps his father's argu- 
ment. Norman Maurice gives his 
reasons for leaving Philadelphia to 
go to the West as follows : 

Here, it may be, 
That after weary toil and matchless 

struggle, 
When strength subsides in age, they will 

acknowledge 
That I am worthy of my bread; may bid 

me 
Look up and be an alderman or mayor. 

In the West 

There is a simpler and a hardier nature, 

That proves men's values, not by wealth 
and title, 

But mind and manhood. There no an- 
cient stocks 

Claim power from precedence. Patrician 
people, 

That boast of virtues in their grandmoth- 
ers, 

162 



MUliam (3Umore Simms. 



Are challenged for their own. With 

them it answers 
If each man founds his family and stands 
The father of a race of future men! 
Mere parchment, and the vain parade of 

title, 
Lift no man into stature. Such a region 
Yields all that I demand: an open field, 
And freedom to all comers. 

But young Simms had left a 
sweetheart in Charleston, and maybe 
her love-lit eyes had power to draw 
him to her side, or was it the fateful 
call of destiny which had decided 
that he must be a literary man rath- 
er than a Mississippi planter or a 
member of Congress from a new 
state? Although he had been a 
drug clerk and had aimed at medi- 
cine, yet more recently the law had 
seemed nearer in line with his intel- 
lectual bent. When the visit to his 
father occurred the youth was ai- 
re ad y a student of Blackstone. 
From his childhood books had been 
his chief interest and joy. Poesy 
had charmed him with her magic 
163 



•QBlilliam (SUmore Slmms. 



spell. Means to give the boy liber- 
al schooling seem to have been lack- 
ing. Perhaps his grandmother did 
not have large ambition for him in 
that direction. Nevertheless, since 
Charleston had many men of liberal 
culture, and was well supplied with 
the best English books, stimulus and 
opportunity for reading were not 
wanting, and'we are told that the 
boy never wearied of reading. He 
had thus profited by such resources 
as came to his hand, hence possessed 
liberal information even at an early 
age. Given books and a taste for 
reading, and one can hardly venture 
to forecast the possibilities of a vig- 
orous, healthy youth. Simms had 
written verse at seven or eight years 
of age, but before his first fee was 
in sight a Monody on Gen. Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney had fallen 
from the press. 

In 1826 Simms was married to 
Miss Giles, of Charleston. He had 
not yet been admitted to the bar. 
164 



Iimtniam Gilmore Simms. 



This was, says Trent, "acting a 
rather serious part in life's drama 
for a poor young man of twenty." 
In 1827 appeared " Lyrical and 
Other Poems," written before he 
was nineteen. If this served no 
other purpose, it showed that a new 
mariner had launched his bark upon 
the troublous and uncertain sea of 
literature. Courage, indeed, was 
needed to venture upon that sea 
where the issue of every voyage is 
doubtful, and v/here so many splen- 
did argosies have sailed away into 
oblivion. Even then Hawthorne 
was ready to tempt the treacherous 
wave, only to find, for a time, sore 
discouragement and temporary lodg- 
ment at the custom - house. Poe 
was soon to feel the lashing of the 
winds and hear the thunder of the 
billows, and be wrapped about by 
the storm-cloud through which the 
sun rarely broke and the stars sel- 
dom shone. 

With no large city in the South 
2 165 



WllUam (Bflmore Simms. 



except New Orleans, and that large- 
ly French ; with no well-equipped 
publishing house for publishing 
books, with no home market for 
such as were printed upon news- 
paper presses — how daring must 
have been the adventurer who de- 
termined to risk all with hope to 
achieve something ! But he felt 
aglow within himself the ambition 
which calls to the highest, and he 
never faltered in his belief that the 
creator of original literature holds 
among his fellows the vantage- 
point of preeminence — is the true 
Prometheus with his sacred fire. 
The will and wit to do is next to 
Omnipotence in achievement. La- 
bor is the true miracle- maker since 
the gods have departed from Olym- 
pus. Even under the social condi- 
tions then existing in the South 
many a poor boy had risen to emi- 
nence. Simms would at least tempt 
the fates in that direction. He ex- 
presses his own call : 
166 



William ©ilmore Simms* 

Not in the rashness of warm confidence, 
Too vainly, self-assured that I was 
strong 
To struggle for and reach that eminence, 
Around whose rugged steeps such 
terrors throng; 
Did I resolve upon the perilous toil 

Which calls for man's best strength 
and hardihood, 
Ere he may win the height and take the 
spoil; 
But that a spirit stronger than my 
mood 
Stood ever by and drave me to the task! 
Oh! not in vain presumption did I 
choose 
The barren honors of the unfruitful 
Nine, 
Sure that no favor from them did I 
ask; 
Small resolution did it need of mine 

To bind me to the service of the Muse! 

He had not read aright the leaves 
of the Sybil in thinking himself 
called to be a poet. 

Much has been written of the 

social and intellectual condition of 

the South during the time which 

marked the birth and earlier years 

167 



Mflliam (Bllmore Simma. 



of Simms. A brief review of the 
situation is in order, since some of 
our own writers maintain an atti- 
tude of apology toward the rest of 
the world on account of the limita- 
tions and deficiencies of the South- 
ern people. Indeed, their short- 
comings were numerous enough, 
biit the comparisons too often seem 
to be made between the present 
advanced culture of New England 
and the Middle States, and the 
ante-bellum or even colonial con- 
dition of the South. Literature was 
not of early and rapid growth any- 
where on the American continent. 
It is true that there were some 
buddings of literature among the 
Spanish priests in Mexico and else- 
where, but the growth was pre- 
mature. Along the banks of the 
majestic James "Ovid" was trans- 
lated, and some half-dozen sketches 
were prepared in the first dozen 
years of the Jamestown Colony ; 
but as soon as these settlers ceased 
168 



TiBliUiam ©ilmorc Simms. 



to be Englishmen the spasmodic 
fire burned itself out. The Bay 
Psalm-Book fell from the Harvard 
press in New England in a few 
years after a settlement had been 
effected ; but the successors of that 
quaint paraphrase of David were 
dry, very dry, theological treatises. 
Because of the gathering of the 
people into towns literary effort 
attracted notice earlier in New Eng- 
land than in the South. Never- 
theless, Henry Adams, the New 
England historian, says : " The 
names of half a dozen persons 
could hardly be mentioned whose 
memories survived by intellectual 
Vi^ork made public in Massachusetts 
between 1783 and 1800." Of the 
chief city he says : " Boston made 
no strong claim to intellectual 
prominence. Neither clergy, law- 
yers, physicians, nor literary men 
were much known beyond the 
state." He speaks of the method 
of instruction at Harvard as being 
169 



•QCllUiam ©ilmore Sfmms. 



"suited to children fourteen years 
of age," and further says, " The in- 
struction itself was poor and the 
discipline was indifferent." Wri- 
ting in 1800, Noah Webster, as 
quoted by Adams, says : "As to 
classical learning, history (civil and 
ecclesiastical), mathematics, astron- 
omy, chemistry, botany, and natural 
history, excepting here and there a 
rare instance of a man who is emi- 
nent in some one of these branches) 
we may be said to have no learning 
at all, or a mere smattering." He 
further says : "As to libraries, we 
have no such things. There are 
not more than three or four toler- 
able libraries in America, and these 
are extremely imperfect." 

Of early education in South 
Carolina Colyer Meriwether says : 
" But while the state and private 
persons were establishing schools 
and promoting the cause of educa- 
tion, the various charitable and re- 
ligious societies were not idle. 
170 



MUliam GUmore Sfmms. 



They not only labored in the cen- 
ters, but carried their work to 
the farther outposts. The Presby- 
terians in the upper part of the 
state, and the Church of England 
in the lower part, placed the means 
of education within reach of all." 
Other religious bodies took a 
prominent part later on. Meri- 
wether further says : " In these va- 
rious ways schools were founded 
over the entire colony, and the 
work was not checked even by the 
Revolutionary War. At the close 
of the war there were twenty-two 
grammar-schools in the province. 
In many of these, if not in all, in- 
struction was given in Latin, Greek, 
and mathematics. . . . The quali- 
fications for teachers were high for 
that time." The dearth was not in 
higher education, but in lack of good 
schools for the very poorest — "the 
poor white trash." Many of the 
wealthier had tutors and sent their 
sons abroad to complete their edu- 
171 



TKIlfUfam ©flmore Simms. 



cation. Yet many of the most emi- 
nent men were educated altogether 
within the colony. 

These facts are given in answer to 
McM aster and others who have as- 
serted that there were no grammar- 
schools in South Carolina at the 
time of the Revolution. In Charles- 
ton arrangement was made as early 
as 1 710 to establish a free school 
with a preceptor " capable of teach- 
ing the Latin and Greek lan- 
guages." A literary society and 
association for establishing a libra- 
ry v/as founded as early as 174S. 
There appears to have been in op- 
eration another library at a much 
earlier period "under care of the 
Episcopal minister." The practical 
operation of Charleston College be- 
gan in 1 79 1. It is easy to show 
this to have been an academy called 
a college. The quotations made 
from Adams show that little else 
was to be found in the United 
States at the beginning of the pres- 
172 



lUaiUiam ©llmore Simms. 



ent century. The Charleston col- 
lege never grew into a univer- 
sity because English schools were 
to the prosperous of that day 
what German schools are now 
to many of our people. This 
description of the intellectual ad- 
vancement of two representative 
sections of the country is intended 
to show that v/hlle ideas of govern- 
ment, and while material interests 
had advanced, higher education was 
about as well advanced in one part 
as in the other, and that literature 
could hardly be said to have made 
an appearance at all. As the cen- 
tury advanced cities sprang up 
more rapidly in the East, creating a 
clientele for writers ; and the re- 
sponse was Irving, Bryant, Long- 
fellow, Cooper, Hawthorne, and 
even Poe. William Gilmore Simms 
entered the list to represent his sec- 
tion in creative literature against 
these. How different might have 
been the result had his preparation 
173 



IWlilliam (5ilmorc Stmms. 



been of greater extent, equal to that 
of Legard, for instance ! As said, 
he had not been able to avail him- 
self of such advantages as were at 
hand, but after all, v^ho knows 
what constitutes one's real prepara- 
tion for life-work? Doubtless the 
Charleston library had been much 
more to him than Charleston col- 
lege. Without money or strong 
friends, among a people devoted to 
English classics, in a state in which 
lawyers and statesmen, as well as 
many planters, were educated 
abroad, at a time when many min- 
isters of the various Church organi- 
zations were classical scholars and 
were teachers as well as preachers, 
with an aristocratic air of conserva- 
tism brooding over all, Simms, 
" with little Latin and less Greek," 
determined to win his way to a posi- 
tion in letters. " Stronger must the 
courage grow, that's fed by con- 
stant fight" was exemplified in his 
case. 

174 



THnilUam (Bilmore Simms. 



Simms had entered upon the prac- 
tise of law at twenty-one ; and his 
fees, Trent tells us, amounted to 
$600 the first year, which was do- 
ing well for a beginner. However, 
he continued to write verse, and 
"Early Lays" was published at the 
end of the year. Soon afterward 
he abandoned the law and assumed 
the editorship of the Tablet^ or 
Southern Monthly Literary Ga- 
zette^ a magazine of sixty-four 
pages. This ran for a year, and, 
like Lowell's first venture, the 
Pioneer^ was not a paying enter- 
prise, and was discontinued. In 
both cases the chief benefit was in 
experience to the 3^oung editors. 
The next venture might have been 
better for Simms, except for the 
storm which arose over the ques- 
tion of nullification. He had be- 
come the editor of the City Gazette. 
With his paper he vehemently 
opposed this movement which 
seemed for a time to sweep every- 
175 



•omtUiam ©ilmcrc Simms. 



thing before it and threatened to 
involve the entire nation. His op- 
position brought financial loss to 
his enterprise, but gave him an op- 
portunity to display the splendid 
personal courage in which he was 
in no degree wanting. 

It has been intimated that South 
Carolina never cared for Simms. 
Previous to the nullification move- 
ment he had been invited to deliver 
orations, and had received such con- 
sideration as usually comes to a 
young man of recognized ability, 
but of uncertain future. He now 
found himself in debt, and much 
less popular, though more widely 
known. No estimate has ever been 
made as to the number of misfor- 
tunes which may travel in close 
company. The death of his wife, 
father, and grandmother, joined 
with the burning of his house and 
the failure of his paper, would have 
crushed most men. These only 
served in the end to lead him into 
176 



•Milliam <5ilmore Simms. 



a wider range of acquaintances 
and larger experience. Travel was 
destined to enlarge his knowledge, 
and perhaps his ambition also. 
Mr. Trent, on the authority of Gris- 
wold, tells us that "Atalantis, a 
Story of the Sea," was prepared for 
the press at Hingham, Mass. That 
was the most ambitious effort in 
poetry ever undertaken by Simms. 
Soon after he went to New York 
and made the acquaintance of Bry- 
ant and other men of reputation in 
letters. Bryant's interest in Simms 
proved to be lifelong. Some short 
stories, poems, and something in the 
direction of literary essays followed 
in the magazines. It was not long 
until the young author felt strong 
enough to venture upon a novel. 
Accordingly, in 1S33, "Martin Fa- 
ber " appeared with the imprint of 
the Harpers. This had a fine run, 
but received some severe criticisrns 
and was finally omitted by the au- 
thor himself from the collected edi- 
12 L 177 



William (5ilmore Simms. 



tion of his works. From this time 
his pen was never idle. 

For the leading facts in regard 
to Simms, without endorsing all 
theories therein set forth, ac- 
knowledgment once for all is 
hereby made to " William Gilmore 
Simms " written for the " Men of 
Letters " series by the accomplished 
scholar, Prof. W. P. Trent, of 
Sewanee, Tenn. For a brief epi- 
tome no better can be offered than 
to select from the article, " Simms " 
in Appleton's " C y c lo p e d i a of 
American Biography." This arti- 
cle was written by Mrs. Margaret J. 
Preston, of Lexington, Va., a lady 
who has done much intelligent and 
sympathetic work in behalf of liter- 
ature in the South, while she her- 
self is the author of no insignifi- 
cant portion of what is best in 
that literature. Mrs. Preston says 
that Mr. Simms had immense fer- 
tility, a vivid imagination, and a 
true realistic handling of whatever 
178 



•CQlilUam ©ilmore Simms. 



he touched. But he was not a fin- 
ished scholar; and although Edgar 
A. Poe pronounced him the best 
novelist America had produced 
after Cooper, his style lacked fin- 
ished elegance and accuracy. Yet 
he has done much in preserving 
the early history and traditions 
and local coloring of his native 
state. The "Yemassee" is consid- 
ered his best novel. Besides the 
w^orks already mentioned, he pub- 
lished "Martin Faber " {New 
York, 1833); the "Book of My 
Lady, a Melange" (Philadelphia, 
1833); "Guy Rivers" (2 vols.. 
New York, 1834); the " Yemas- 
see" (2 vols., 1835); the "Par- 
tisan" (2 vols., 1835); "Melli- 
champe" (2 vols., 1836); "Rich- 
ard Hurdis " ( 2 vols., Philadelphia,, 
1838); "Palayo" (New York, 
1838); "Carl Werner, and Other 
Tales" (2 vols., 1838); "South- 
ern Passages and Pictures," poems. 
(1839) ; " Border Beagles " (2 vols., 
179 



•QDldliam ©ilmore Simms, 



1840); the "Kinsman" (Phila- 
delphia, 1S41 ; republished as the 
" Scout," New York, 1854) ; " Con- 
fession, or the Blind Heart" (2 
vols., 1842); "Beauchampe" (2 
vols., 1842); "Helen Halsey" 
(1845;) "Castle Dismal" (1845); 
"Count Julian" (2 vols., 1845); 
"Grouped Thoughts and Scattered 
Fancies," poems (Richmond, 1845) ; 
the " Wigwam and the Cabin, or 
Tales of the South "(two series, 
Charleston, 1845-46) ; "Areytos, or 
Songs and Ballads of the South" 
(1S46); "Lays of the Palmetto" 
(1848); "Katherine Walton" 
(New York, 1851); the " Golden 
Christmas" (1852); "Marie de 
Berniere " (1853); " Father Ab- 
bot, or the Home Tourist" 
(1854); "Poems" (2 vols., 1854); 
the " Forayers " ( 1855) ; the " Ma- 
roon, and Other Tales" (1855); 
"Charlemont" (1856); "Utah" 
(1856); and the "Cassique 
180 



Milliam (Bilmore Slmms, 



of Kiawah" (iS6o). In 1867 be 
edited " War Poetry of the South." 
He wrote a "History of South 
Carolina" (Charleston, 1840) and 
" South Carolina in the Revolu- 
tion " (1854), and lives of Francis 
Marion (New York, 1844), Capt. 
John Smith (1846), Chevalier Bay- 
ard (1848), and Gen. Nathaniel 
Greene (1849). He wrote two 
dramas, " Norman Maurice " and 
" Michael Bonhum, or the Fall of 
the Alamo," which was acted in 
Charleston. He also wrote a 
" Geography of South Carolina " 
(1843). He edited " Seven Dramas 
Ascribed to Shakespeare," with 
notes and introductions (1S48), and 
contributed many reviews to period- 
icals, two volumes of which were 
afterward collected (New York, 
1845-46). A collected edition of 
part of his works has been pub- 
lished (19 vols.. New York, 1859). 
Many of Simms's w^ritings have 
never been collected, as he was one 
3 181 



Millfam (5ilmore Simms. 



of the most prolific of writers and 
wrote for numerous periodicals. 

This partial list, long though it 
is, has been given as published 
since it serves in part to explain the 
limitations of the author both as to 
matter and style. While lack of 
early advantages might have been 
largely overcome, this overproduc- 
tion prevented anything like a pol- 
lished style and careful attention to 
details. Hence passages of great 
strength and beauty are found in 
the midst of chapters of crude mat- 
ter evidently thrown together in 
great haste. 

Of a collection of short stories, 
published early, Trent says : 
" Some of them show^ that Simms 
was master at times of a prose style 
which, if not charming, might 
nevertheless with a little pains have 
been made distinctly graceful. Un- 
fortunately, as the years went by, 
and as the temptation to do hurried 
182 



•QCltlliam (5flmore Simms. 



work became less easy to resist, his 
style lost these early traces of pleas- 
ing qualities, and was never more 
than a serviceable style with some 
strength, but with a constant ten- 
dency to become slipshod." This 
has been too true in the case of many 
authors. Few have been able to at- 
tain a style pleasing and strong and 
maintain this in all their work. Of 
the stories written by Simms, many 
are founded on real events. No 
colony had more that was thrilling 
in its history than South Carolina. 
The upper and lower portions of 
the colony held two classes of peo- 
ple within its borders, and these 
with no great love for each other. 
Moreover, this had been the favor- 
ite province of English royalty, 
hence when the war broke out 
many prominent men sided with the 
king. On the other hand, some of 
the truest, bravest, and most self- 
sacrificing patriots of all the conti- 
tinental army were found among 
183 



MiUiam Gilmore Simms. 



this proud-spirited people. Natu- 
rally this resulted in fierce conflicts, 
which dyed the soil with blood, and 
brought desolation and death to 
many a home. Simms did much to 
preserve the fame of these partizan 
warriors, and the memories of their 
brave deeds. With Cooper in the 
North and Kennedy in Virginia, 
the more southern field was left to 
Simms ; and of this he had large 
knowledge, having gathered much 
in the way of un-written history, 
legends, tales of adventure by 
scout, patriot, and pioneers. 

Although " Martin Faber " was 
the first to appear, Simms speaks 
of " Guy Rivers " " as my first de- 
liberate attempt in prose fiction," 
and further tells us that the first 
volume was written before he was 
of age. This accounts for the fact 
that " Guy Rivers " appeared in 
1834, a year after the appearance of 
" Martin Faber." It seems to be 
true that most authors have on 
184 



TRUnUam (5ilmorc Simms, 



hand a stock of " earlier work,^' 
which is put to market as soon as 
the writer attains his first recogni- 
tion, often to the great detriment of 
a rising reputation. Later in life 
the novelist fain would have im- 
proved the crudeness of that first 
volume. Nevertheless " Guy Riv- 
ers" succeeded from the day of its 
publication, passing through three 
editions and being reprinted in 
London in little more than a year. 
In his criticism of this work Trent 
says : " No one called ' Guy Riv- 
ers ' feeble. In spite of its stilted 
style and its wooden characters, 
there was a bustle and a movement 
about it that interested an uncritical 
public. , . . Undiluted Ameri- 
canism was what many readers 
were crying for, and they got it in 
' Guy Rivers ; ' excitement, senti- 
mentality, bombast were what 
others were crying for, and they 
got all three in ' Guy Rivers.' 
What wonder, then, that the book 
185 



llClilliam (Bilmore Stmms, 



was popular. But, as has been 
said, these uncritical readers were 
right in holding that the author of 
* Guy Rivers ' was a man of 
ability. They were right in saying 
that he knew how to tell a story 
without allowing its interest to flag. 
They felt, moreover, that he had 
opened a new world to them, a 
world lying near their very doors 
in that year of our Lord eighteen 
hundred and thirty- four ; not an 
old world separated from them by 
thousands of miles of ocean and by 
centuries of time." The scene of 
" Guy Rivers " was laid in Georgia, 
and it was one of a number of tales 
to follow, called " Border Ro- 
mances," from the fact that the 
scenes were laid on the border of 
advancing civilization and filled 
with the wild life and adventures of 
those times of recklessness and al- 
most savagery. We can hardly 
conceive now how anything could 
have been so revolting as much of 
186 



IRIliUiam Otlmore Simms. 



the speech and life of many of 
these backwoods characters ; but 
they lived and acted, and Simms 
portrayed them in what some of 
his most friendly critics considered 
too literal a realism. 

Some time after the publication of 
this book Simms returned from New 
York to Charleston to continue what 
he had now fully decided to be his 
life-work. Trent seems determined 
that modern Charleston must repent 
of treatment given Simms by the 
Charleston of that earlier time, hence 
he says : " But in Charleston he 
still found himself a nobody." The 
question arises, was this an isola- 
ted case peculiar to Charleston ? 
Among most people the idea pre- 
vails that the man from a distance 
can teach the best school, preach 
the best sermon, deliver the best 
lecture, or write the best book. Hu- 
manity places its heroes and divini- 
ties at a distance. It is Homeric to 
say, " The song mankind most 
187 



IKauilam (Bilmore Simmg. 



heartily applauds is that which rings 
newest in their ears ;" but the old 
poet might have added from expe- 
rience that it must not be sung by a 
native singer. Some one has inti- 
mated that in Boston the passport 
to good society depends on the 
proper answer to the question ; 
" What has he written ? " How- 
ever that may be, such is not the 
case elsewhere in America. In al- 
most any city the authorship of one 
or two successful books will not 
cause those who have written none, 
or only unsuccessful ones, to ex- 
press a great amount of admiration 
for one whose very success is a con- 
stant reminder of their own tardy 
progress in the race of life. A 
reputation once well established 
abroad cannot continue to be ig- 
nored at home, but too often the 
singer has " passed beyond the sun- 
set gate" before his song is heard. 
Politics strangely blinds the eyes 
188 



IHIlilUam ©ilmore Simms. 

of men to everything good in those 
of the opposing party. When 
Simms the author of two rapidly 
selling novels returned to Charles- 
ton richer in purse, there were 
some who had not forgotten how 
bitterly Simms the editor had as- 
sailed those who favored nullifica- 
tion. That they did forgive and 
forget in time is proved by the fact 
that in after years his home became 
the focal point of interest for all the 
literary Ughts of that region ; that 
Paul H. Hayne, a member of one 
of the oldest and most aristocratic 
families, and the nephew of Gov. 
Hayne who favored nullification, be- 
came a Hfe-long admirer and friend, 
and that Simms finally came to be 
the largest figure intellectually in 
Charleston, and in fact in South 
Carolina. 

Simms has told his own story in 

the dedicatory letter for the revised 

edition of " Guy Rivers," published 

twenty years later. In this letter to 

189 



TKUfniam ©ilmore Simms. 



Charles R. Carroll, speaking of the 
first edition of " Guy Rivers," with 
the dedication to Carroll twenty 
years before, Simms says ; " Then 
we were lawyers and politicians 
upon a small scale ; lawyers, with 
quite too little devotion to Themis to 
win many of her favors ; politicians, 
with a too small knowledge of men 
to make politics a profitable invest- 
ment ; and, more amusing still, pol- 
iticians with at least one conclusive 
argument against every hope of 
personal progress, that we both en- 
tertained a wild fancy of patriotism, 
dreaming that our little world need- 
ed reformation, and that we were, 
in some degree, the very persons 
allotted to put the house of state in 
order! ... I need not remind 
3'OU that the fruit of our first con- 
nection with the political struggles 
of our youth was fatal to our per- 
sonal prospects in such a career. 
The final overthrow of the party 
190 



•QClUlfam 6(lmorc Sfmms. 



with which we were allied was a 
perpetual closing of the doors of 
public life to us. I say perpetual, 
though, truth to speak, we were 
only under the ban some few years, 
and the 'era of good feeling,' in 
process of time, was the natural re- 
sult of the necessity for a new po- 
litical organization. But five years 
lost to a young politician might as 
well be an eternity ! To remain 
for that period in waiting upon the 
benches of equal hope and mortifi- 
cation would wear out the inexpress- 
ibles of the best patriot living. It 
would argue, besides, a degree of 
stolidity to which I had not the 
slightest pretension. With a few 
sighs, therefore, not so profound as 
those of Othello, I abandoned the 
profession of the patriot and poli- 
tician. My occupation for the time 
was gone ; for, cut off from poli- 
tics, I was equally cutoff from law. 
The prejudices which a young begin- 
ner incurs in politics will necessarily 
191 



WiUiam (5ilmore Simms* 



follow him into the courts where his 
talents have been untried. Besides, 
I had never heartily embraced the 
profession, had never studied con 
a??iore^ and, after two years wasted 
in the dreary life of a political editor, 
I was not in training for the resump- 
tion of the severe and systematic 
methods which the law demands of 
its votaries. Literature v^as my only 
refuge, as it had been my first love, 
and, as I fancied, my proper voca- 
tion ; and ' Guy Rivers,' the first 
volume of which was written before 
I was of age, was the first of my 
regular novels. To you, my dear 
Carroll, who watched my early be- 
ginnings with so much friendly in- 
terest, I need not say that ' Guy 
Rivers,' crude of plan in many re- 
spects, awkward in consequence of 
the measured and stilted style of an 
unpractised hand, with many faults 
of taste, and some perhaps of moral, 
was yet singularly successful with 
the public. Its rapid popularity, 
192 



Mllliam (3ilmore Sfmme. 



however unmerited, seemed to jus- 
tify me in the new profession I had 
chosen ; and the young lawyer and 
the patriot politician were naturally >/ 
very soon sunk in the novelist and 
romancer." 

Here, let it be remarked paren- 
thetically, that while a few Caro- 
linians never gave Simms due hon- 
or, his name will remain one of the 
brightest on their roll of great names, 
and will not stand far down the list 
of pioneer American writers. So 
rich was his field, so industriously 
did he labor to overcome early dis- 
advantages, so ample were his tal- 
ents, and so persistent was his pur- 
pose in literature, that something 
was created which must last. The 
best will be sifted from the indiffer- 
ent, and take its place among things 
of permanent value. The South 
cannot afford to ignore his work, 
for, take him all in all, she has pro- 
duced few greater men — few men 
who have labored harder to give his 
13 M 193 



TRUtUiam Gilmore Simms. 



section her true place in history and 
literature. Poe's misfortunes have 
been thought to have discouraged 
literary aspirants in the South, but 
Simms did not find the venture an 
unprofitable one, though he received 
little pay for much of his editorial 
work. His income as a lawyer 
would hardly have been greater than 
was his income from his books. His 
work was worth doing apart from its 
pecuniary and artistic value. In his 
day romance had not learned to re- 
ward the guilty and punish the 
good, nor to rake the alleys for he- 
roes, and particularly for heroines. 
Purity, modesty, goodness in wom- 
an ; courage, truth, nobility in man — 
these received reward, while the bad 
went to their own place. 

J. Wood Davidson and Paul H. 
Playne, in sketches of Simms, fail to 
mention " Guy Rivers " in its proper 
place, but Davidson puts it twenty 
years later, at the time of the revised 
edition. The omission is difficult to 
194 



Milliam ©ilmore Simms. 



explain, since Griswold had given 
the proper order of these works long 
before. The busy author did not 
pause to enjoy his honor, but in a 
few months a two- volume romance 
was ready for publication. The 
" Yemassee, a Roniance of Carolina." 
was published in the spring of 1835. 
Many consider this the high-water 
mark of the author. The tale is 
based on the history of the war of 
extermination wagfed agfainst the 
Yemassee Indians after their attempt 
to massacre the whites of South Car- 
olina. The first edition was exhaust- 
ed in three days, and three editions 
were issued in a year. In this work 
Simms does some admirable sketch- 
ing of characters. x\s we under- 
stand Indians now, these given us 
from the Yemassees are more nearly 
the real Indian than some of the 
fawning idealized beings presented 
as such by Cooper. The Yemassees; 
were long friendly to the whites, but, 
alarmed by gradual encroachments 
195 



TMilliam ©ilmore Simms. 



upon their hunting - grounds, they 
first become sullen, then listen to 
the Spaniards until a general mas- 
sacre is resolved upon. But Gov. 
Craven has been among them in dis- 
guise, learned their plans, and is pre- 
pared to succor the frontiersmen. 
The Governor has fallen in love 
with the pretty daughter of a Puri- 
tan preacher living on the border 
between whites and Indians. But 
to quote again, Trent says : " In his 
description of the brave and hand- 
some Gov. Craven, who mingled in 
.disguise among the doughty fron- 
tiersmen, and, as Capt. Gabriel Har- 
rismi, foils Indians and pirates, and 
wins the love of the fair Bess Math- 
ews, daughter of the strict old 
Puritan preacher, he is undoubtedly 
following Scott. In his descrip- 
tion of the noble Sanutee, the well- 
beloved of the Yemassees, and of 
his wife Matiwan and their son Oc- 
conestoga; in his animated account 
of the attack on the block-house^ 
196 



Iliamiam ©ilmore Slmms. 



and of Harrison's adventures in the 
Indian village, he is as undoubtedly 
follow^ing Cooper. In his descrip- 
tion of trackless swamp and slug- 
gish river, of the deadly serpent 
lurking in the center of luxuriant 
groves, of the faithful slave who 
will not aceejDt his freedom, he 
strikes out for himself, and proves 
that he has a right to a distinct place 
among American men of letters. 
But when he wearies his readers 
with hairbreadth escapes, with te- 
dious love-scenes, and with the af- 
fected humor of very lack-humorous 
characters ; when he is careless in 
his grammar and pompous in his 
diction, one confesses with a sigh 
that it is his own fault that his posi- 
tion as a writer is not more secure." 
A little farther on in the same 
connection Prof. Trent says : " He 
owes the fact that he never rose to 
the front rank, even of his own coun- 
try's writers, to the limitations im- 
posed upon him by his Southern 
4 197 



J 



Milllam ©ilmorc Simms. 



birth." Elsewhere the same author, 
after descanting upon the direful con- 
sequences of slavery, says : " Under 
such conditions and with his inher- 
ited qualities, it is no wonder that 
the Southerner of the clays of nulli- 
fication was inferior to his revolu- 
tionary sire." Now this degenera- 
tion from contact with slavery ought 
not to have borne so severely upon 
Simms, since he had won his place 
before he became a slave owner. 
Nor does it seem to have weakened 
Poe, who spent his childhood as the 
adopted son of a wealthy man, pre- 
sumably a slaveholder. Nor did it 
change the fact that two out of the 
three greatest orators of the nation 
were from slaveholding states. Nor 
did it seem to have a deteriorating 
influence upon the courage of South- 
ern soldiers, or the ability of their 
commanders. Moreover, this same 
soldier, thus enervated by slavery, 
showed wonderful powers of recu- 
peration when left broken in fi- 
198 



William ©ilmore Simms* 



nances ; nor did it take many ages 
under a Southern sun to recover 
ability sufficient for a movement all 
along the lines of literature as soon 
as literature came to have a larger 
share of honor and reward. We 
have been told repeatedly that the 
South could have had no literature 
under slavery, since men did not 
dare tell the truth about their sec- 
tion — their institution. The best lit- 
erature touches the larger rather 
than the local mind. Shakespeare 
hardly told all the truth about the 
polities of his time ; Milton found it 
convenient to deal with beings of the 
upper and nether worlds rather than 
with the affairs of King Charles. 
Possibly Virgil found .^neas a safer 
subject to depict than some things 
pertaining to Caesar. 

This is no defense of slavery, but 
the aphorism of Debow may be put : 
the plow, then the pen. The South 
went through the experience of de- 
velopment, and part of that devel- 
199 



"(KlliUiam (Bilmorc Simms. 



opment carried with it the cultiva- 
tion of raw material on the planta- 
tion. The planter owned his ten- 
ants, and sometimes oppressed them, 
though hardly more than some cor- 
porations oppress their laborers now. 
However, what was the usual con- 
dition is aptly set forth by Richard 
Malcolm Johnson, as follows : "A 
Southern planter was guarded by 
the most efficient police under the 
sun. The planter knew that, hardly 
more than his children, would his 
own slaves be tempted to rob him 
or otherwise molest his repose. . . . 
The world did never — and hence- 
forth, in all likelihood, it never will 
— understand the confidential, affec- 
tionate relations between Southern 
planters and their slaves." No man 
understands this matter better than 
the writer just quoted. This state 
of affairs shows that Southern peo- 
ple did not suppose that they held 
great sins and enormities hidden 
away which must not be mentioned 
200 



Milliam ©llmore Slmms. 



— which forbid all free exercise of 
literary endeavor. Many deplored 
the evil under which they found 
themselves placed, but felt no guilty 
sense of personal responsibility, 
hence any dearth of purely literary 
writings must be explained, in part 
at least, from other causes. Johnson 
compares the South to Rome in 
having no Homers to sing of its he- 
roes, and further says : " It was the 
South's misfortune to be isolated 
from the rest of mankind, and so to 
be comparatively unknown to them. 
Knowing this, and feeling conscious 
that they were striving honorably to 
do whatever was best in existing 
conditions, its planters kept them- 
selves involved in proud self-respect, 
and became too indifferent to extend 
their ideas and perpetuate their his- 
tory. With this feeling its men of 
letters wrote no annals, no sketches 
of social or domestic life. It was a 
great mistake, and a greater misfor- 



201 



TKauUam (Silmore Simms. 



The year 1835 ^^^^ ^ very prolific 
one with Simms. In addition to the 
" Yemassee " in two volumes, the 
" Partisan " likewise saw the light. 
This was a romance in two volumes, 
founded on history and traditions of 
the Revolution. Hayne says that the 
day of its publication " might well, 
after the Roman fashion, have been 
marked by the author with a ''white 
stone." During these first years of 
his work others were in the field. 
" Cavaliers of Virginia," by Dr. 
William Caruthers, was published 
in 1832 ; J. P. Kennedy published 
"Swallow Barn" in 1832; and 
" Horseshoe Robinson " appeared 
the same year as the " Partisan," 
covering similar ground. Poe had 
taken his hundred-dollar prize for 
"MS. Found in a Bottle" in 1833, 
and Thomas VV. White had issued at 
Richmond, in August, 1834, the first 
number of the " Southern Literary 
Messenger." Poe had become the 
editor of the " Messenger " when 
202 



TKHiUiam ©llmore Simms. 



the " Partisan " appeared, and de- 
voted five columns to a discussion of 
its merits and demerits. The latter 
Poe never allowed to escape his 
barbed pen, though he was the friend 
and admirer of Simms till death. 
The " Partisan " was the first of a 
trilogy which was completed in 1850 
by the publication of "Katharine 
Walton," " Mellichampe," the sec- 
ond of the series, having been issued 
in 1836. In these books is contained 
much of the author's very best wri- 
ting. The faults which kept him 
below Cooper in so many instances 
are not wanting, but Marion, Sump- 
ter, Gates, Cornwallis, and Tarleton 
live anew. Not only that, but char- 
acters of force are created. Brave 
Porgy, with his appetite, and hu- 
morous philosophy, will not readily 
drop from literature ; in fact, the 
author can not let him go at the end 
of one book. Some call him a copy 
of Falstaff. Both are large, and 
both talk, but there the resemblance 
203 



millfam Gllmore Stmms. 



ends. Porgy has been supposed in 
many instances to voice the senti- 
ments of Simms himself. 

While here and there a Southern- 
er was becoming prominent in let- 
ters, these advancing waves were 
destined to recede, for a while at 
least. The forces were too much 
scattered. When a new movement 
in literature occurred in the East a 
few years later the principal actors 
were grouped near enough to en- 
courage each other and to become 
mutually helpful. In fact, Longfel- 
low, when praised by a contem- 
porary, was said to be " insured in 
the Mutual, since what one of the 
coterie wrote the others praised." 
Mrs. Preston says of the scattered 
plantation life of the South : " It 
made against the creation of literary 
centers ; it segregated the educated 
and literary men, and so rendered 
ineffective an influence which, if 
massed, might have been powerful." 
She further says : " Southern litera- 
204 



•QClilUam Gilmore Sfmms. 



^ ture has run in the line of state pa- 
l pers and national speeches and sen- 
<^ atorial debates and patriotic orations. 
. . . Madison and Monroe chose 
to spend their strength upon state 
papers rather than upon the ele- 
gance of letters. Wirt, with his 
charm of style, might have been al- 
most a Geoffrey Crayon, but politics 
overruled him. Kennedy could 
easily have disputed laurels with 
Cooper, had not his native Maryland 
found more important work for him 
to do. Legar^ might have written 
works on international law equal to 
others, had not South Carolina need- 
ed him for something else. There 
have been multitudes of strangled 
poets who had the spirit of song 
choked out by surrounding circum- 
stances. Public Southern opinion 
decided that there was something 
more virile to do than to spend one's 
days in polishing tropes." Simms 
was the one ante-bellum Southerner 
who remained in his section and 
205 



TIDlUliam (Bilmorc Simme. 



gave himself to creative literature ; 
but even he was repeatedly editor, 
and sometimes coquetted v^ith poli- 
tics. There came a time w^hen the 
South had no political leadership, 
the best intellects needed other 
forms of activity, hence " the recent 
movement in Southern literature." 
The author speaks of " Melli- 
champe," which followed the " Par- 
tisan," as an episode in the progress 
of that romance, rather than a con- 
tinuation of the story, though " the 
events made use of are all histor- 
ical." He assures us that the per- 
sonages and exciting events are real, 
having only the names slightly 
veiled in fiction. 

In 1836, the year of the publica- 
tion of " Mellichampe," Simms was 
again happily married. His wife 
was Miss Chevilette Roach, the 
only child of a wealthy planter of 
Barnwell District, S. C. Thence- 
forth, during a portion of the year 
at least, the novelist resided at 
206 



UClUllam (3Umore Simms. 



"Woodlands," the house of his fa- 
ther-in-law. This became his own 
property in time, and here was col- 
lected his library of ten thousand 
volumes, which was burned during 
the war. Here he received several 
visits from William Cullen Bryant ; 
here were often gathered around his 
board men of national repute in lit- 
erature, as well as the notables of 
his own state. With a growing 
reputation, with a liberal sale of his 
works, it is not strange that he 
added to his material resources, for 
he was ever accounted a good busi- 
ness man. 

" Woodlands " was open to neigh- 
bors as well as to distinguished 
guests from abroad. The South 
Carolinian loves his home and his 
state by nature, and Simms w^as far 
from being an exception. Paul H. 
Hayne says : "As Scott loved the 
heather, as Whittier loves the 
mountains, the lakes, the calm river 
banks, the green meadows of New 
207 



TKIKUiam ©ilmore Simms* 



England, so with as deejD, unfalter- 
ing a passion Simms adored the 
sultry pine barrens, the luxuriant 
swamps, the desolate seaside soli- 
tudes of the state of his nativity. 
And, as he loved her scenery he 
upheld and vindicated her historic 
fame." " Woodlands," with its live- 
oaks and loiig-leaf pines, was said to 
have been a beautiful place. In the 
years v^hich followed the tireless 
pen of Simms was active on all 
lines. Romances,..each having some 
specific field and giving a picture of 
some particular time, numerous 
poems, biographies, reviews, and 
much editorial work followed with 
rapidity. For several terms he was 
a member of the Legislature, was 
within one vote of Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor. Men of less force had been 
Governors, Congressmen, and Uni- 
ted States Senators. Simms felt 
this, and complained bitterly at rare 
intervals, but lived happily and used 
208 



IdiUiam (5ilmore Simms. 



his influence with the press to en- 
courage younger Kterary men. 
Hayne, Timrod, and others bore 
testimony to that fact. RusselVs 
Magazine-) with Hayne as editor, 
was evolved at one of Simms's sup- 
pers. 

"Katharine Walton," the com- 
pleting volume of the trilogy de- 
voted to the Revolution, as said, 
did not appear until 1850. Simms 
had studied the field closely before 
writing this romance, and Hayne 
tells us that this is the only true pic- 
ture of Charleston during the time 
in which the city was held by the 
British. The work reads more like 
history than fiction on many of its 
pages. The author did not by any 
means drop the Revolutionary War 
with these works. This sketch 
must draw to a close, and in the 
pages allotted little can be said of a 
critical nature, nor can an outline of 
the romances be attempted. His 
faults are readily apparent. He saw 
14 N 209 



milliam (3ilmore Simmg. 



them himself and pointed them out 
even when he made no serious ef- 
fort to mend them. Few men have 
written so much, and especially with 
such rapidity. The " Partisan," 
" Mellichampe," "Katharine Wal- 
ton," the " Scout," " Forayers," " Eu- 
taw," " Woodcraft," carry the read- 
er through the entire Revolutionary 
period. No one having an interest 
in the early history of the nation 
can afford to neglect any of the 
series. The author knew his field 
and loved his pictures. Georgia, 
in " Guy Rivers ; " Kentucky, in 
" Beauchampe " and " Charlemont ;" 
Alabama, in " Richard Hurdis ; " 
Mississippi, in " Border Beagles ;" 
and Carolina, in the " Yemassee " — 
are all portrayed as to their earlier 
scenes with a faithfulness not found 
elsewhere. In " Vasconselas " De 
Soto marches in stately procession. 
Most of his novels are accessible 
in an edition of ten volumes, pub- 
210 



lIOKUiam ©ilmote Slmms. 



lished in 1882 by A. C. Armstrong 
& Son, of New York. The author 
deserves an edition with better 
print and paper containing more of 
his writings. These works will 
have an increasing value for the his- 
torian, as they present such invalu- 
able pictures of colonial and rev- 
olutionary times, as well as ac- 
curate portraits of the people of 
periods which will never cease to 
be of interest. Not only is the 
painting true to life, but the action 
does not fail of interest. The 
haunting desire for poetic expres- 
sion seemed to elude Simms in his 
poetry, but often came with rare 
grace and fancy to enrich the de- 
scriptive passages of his prose. 
With part of the year at " Wood- 
lands " and part at Charleston, 
with frequent trips to the North, 
Simms passed the years till the war. 
He made a few lecture trips, edited 
for a time the Southern and West- 
ern Monthly Magazine and Re- 
211 



William (3ilmore Simms» 



view ^ in 1S49 became editor of the 
Southerji ^uartei'ly^ wrote his bi- 
ographies, and did a vast aniount ol 
hack work. As the years advanced, 
like many others who had opposed 
nullification, he wrote and talked in 
favor of secession. At the break- 
ing out of the war he ardently took 
sides with his state. 

He had not had all sunshine at 
" Woodlands." Two sons had been 
stricken with yellow fever and died. 
Afterward he buried other chil- 
dren. Hayne says : " The fire- 
demon followed Simms with a cu- 
rious pertinacity. He lost a house 
in Summerville, S. C, while his first 
wife lived, with most of his books. 
His Charleston house was destroyed 
in i860. The first dwelling at 
^Woodlands,' the fine old brick house, 
was burned in 1862, when $3,000 was 
sent him by his friends to rebuild. 
The mansion then constructed was 
the one which perished under the 
stealthy torch of the negroes, led on 
212 



Milliam (Bllmore Slmms. 



by a sable Judas, the recipient for 
half a century of unlimited confi- 
dence and kindness — an utter vil- 
lain, who ought to have been hanged 
higher than Haman." His library 
was saved from the fire in 1862, 
but was lost in the fire at the close 
of the war. Simms did little work 
during the war. Hayne says he 
was dazed, the tragedy v/as too real. 
He was present at the burning of 
Columbia, and his account of that 
event has hardly been surpassed in 
vividness of description. 

Simms found himself broken in 
finances at the close of the war — as 
what Southerner did not? But a 
greater calamity had come in the 
midst of the rain of fire and blood 
which devastated a land. In 1863 
he lost his faithful, loving wife. 
For a time his reason almost reeled, 
and protracted fever followed. He 
visited Hayne in 1866. Hayne says : 
" I could not but remark how aged 
he had become. . . . His hair 
5 213 



•©aiUiam (3ilmore Slmms. 



v/as thinned and white, his beard 
grizzled, his fine forehead scarred 
with wrinkles, and over the once 
fiery eyes a film rested as of un- 
shed tears." For the sake of his 
children, in 1868, he took contracts 
for three books to be worked on at 
the same time. He finished two in 
less than a year, but broke down on 
the third. Eleven months of con- 
tinued physical suffering followed. 
The end drew near. His bosom 
friend. Rev. James Miles, stood by 
his death-bed and received his falter- 
ing but fervent confession of faith 
in the mercy of the atoning Christ 
June II, 1870, two days after the 
death of Dickens, Simms closed a 
life marked by high hopes realized 
in part, a life filled with labors such 
as few mortals have attempted. 

Perhaps fifty volumes of good 
size would not contain all he has 
written. If several of his stories, 
with their hard rides, hard fighting, 
and daring adventures, were put in 
214 



iraiilliam (3ilmore Slmms. 



convenient shape, surely boys who 
relish feats of courage and endur- 
ance would read them with some- 
thing of the interest once felt in 
thrilling adventure by healthy, nat- 
ural boys before the days in which 
the surging of lawless passions af- 
fords so many of the thrilling fea- 
tures of fiction. These tales of a 
time which no\v seems olden so 
breathe of the life of the people 
that they appear to have grown nat- 
urally out of the soil. There was 
strength, intense action, often great 
power, in much that he wrote. 
Right loyal vv^as he to his native 
land, and well did he know and 
deeply did he love her history and 
traditions. He would have liked 
political honor had it come to him 
as a fitting reward to his efforts to 
help his section create a literature, as 
with him literature was before all, 
and infinitely higher than all. Hard- 
ly any man ever attempted so many 
lines, doing so large an amount 
215 



TKHiUiam (Bilmore Simms. 



of work with a fair share of suc- 
cess in each. An admirer says : 
" Simms must live as a man of let- 
ters — a novelist, historian, biogra- 
pher, editor, pamphleteer, and poet." 
In this limited space little can be 
said of his poetry. First and last 
several volumes came from his pen. 
Perhaps above all things did he de- 
sire to be a great poet. He was not 
the first to be mocked with the de- 
sire, and yet be denied the divine 
faculty to create some enduring bit 
of song. There are bits of real po- 
etry here and there, but oftener in 
his prose than in his verse. " Nor- 
man Maurice " is his best drama ; 
"Atalantis" is his most ambitious 
poem. The " Silent City " is per- 
haps his best. No single short 
poem stands out preeminent. His 
poetical works are out of print. 
Hardly a very small volume of real 
value could be selected from all he 
wrote. " Southern Passages and 
Pictures" catches the sweet breath 
216 



miUfam ©Umorc Simms. 



of the languid, sensuous South oft- 
ener than any other of his verse. 
Though much of his poetry has 
stonger Hnes and even stronger stan- 
zas, the follov^ing is a fair specimen : 
Shines in mid-heaven the summer sun, 
Green the gay robes which the woods 

have won, 
And far aloft, o'er the snowy fleece 
Of clouds that brood in the realm of 

peace, 
Spreads the great arch, with a deepening 

blue, 
That meetly, with beauty, still bounds 

the view; 
The swallow flits, with a jojous cry. 
From the shadowed eaves to the open sky, 
And the vulture stoops, in his eager 

spring, 
'Neath the sudden flash of his arrowy 

wing. 
O, freed is the earth from her winter 

trance. 
And the young summer hath her inher- 
itance; 
The surly monarch of storm no more 
Darkens the realm he ruled before; 
His scepter, where late he smote the 

wood, 
Vord of the somber solitude, 
217 



TKHUliam (Silmorc Simms. 



Broken, away in his fear he flies 

To the kindred glooms of his Northern 

skies; 
And a chirp and a song now cheer the 

hours, 
And the very grave wears a robe of 

flowers. ' 

She comes the summer so blessing, and 
earth 

Bounds, with a wing, to a better birth; 

She breathes o'er the plain, and a thou- 
sand eyes 

Open at once in a world of dyes; 

Blue and purple, the buds unfold, 

Happy and bright in their green and 
gold; 

Daisies, that speak for the virgin heart, 

Lowly but sweet by the path upstart; 

And pinks, that promise for hopes of 
youth, 

Blossom with others that speak for truth. 

O, joyous freedom from hostile thrall, 
That brings the blessing and bloom to 

all, 
That on rock and valley, height and 

plain, 
Bestows the sun and the smile again; 
That only breathes upon winter's brow, 
And breaks his fetters and melts his 

snow ; 

218 



TKIlUUam (3ilmore Simms, 



That smiles upon autumn's withered 

bower, 
And straightway it glories in fruit and 

flower. 
And but whispers the sons of men, and 

they seem 
Like children blessed with a joyous 

dream. 

O, the glad summer, how bright her eye, 
How sweet her breath and how soft her 

sky, 
How wondrous her magic power to bless 
With the bloom of the garden the wil- 
derness — 
To crown the wild thorn with the golden 

flower, 
To bathe the sad earth with the genial 

shower. 
To foster the strength in the breast of 

toil. 
And hallow with bounty the niggard 

soil, 
Glad the broad fields with the sunripe 

grain. 
Till we dream of the age of gold again. 

Of Simms in his personality it 

may be said that those who knew 

him best loved him most ; that he 

was a man of stainless honor, strict 

219 



milUam Gilmore Simms. 



integrity, and a great lover of what 
might be denominated fair play. A 
good dinner and a good story were 
ever to his taste. He dispensed 
hospitality with an open hand, but 
did not always allow his guests to 
interfere with his hours of work, 
though he was a man of rare pow- 
ers of conversation, and greatly en- 
joyed the company of friends. 

Hayne gives an account of how he 
sat and watched the pen glide over the 
paper while Simms wrote Some 
marvelous accounts are given of the 
rapidity with which he turned off 
manuscript. Notwithstanding this, 
he studied his fields so closely that, 
as Poe intimated, he did not depend 
enough upon his imagination, did not 
idealize enough. His narrative reads 
too much like history. His charac- 
ters are people in whose history 
we can easily become interested, but 
his men and women ever remain on 
the outside, and do not come into our 
220 



MilKam (Silmore Simms. 



lives and become part of our spir- 
itual furnishing. No more fitting 
close can be given this too imper- 
fect sketch of Simms than by quo- 
ting again from his faithful and sym- 
pathizing friend, Paul H. Hayne ; 
" Simms was indeed a typical South- 
erner of the ante-bellum period, a 
period w^hich not a few nowadays, 
calling themselves Southerners, are 
in the habit of despising, depre- 
ciating, or referring to ' with bated 
breath ' as the ' epoch of darkness 
and Egyptian bondage.' Yes, a 
virile and upright spirit, constitu- 
tionally incapable of fraud or mean- 
ness, and chastened at last into pa- 
thetic gentleness ; a man greater 
than his works, produced, as they 
had been, under circumstances of 
peculiar trial, but of which, never- 
theless, it may be predicted, Non 
Omncm Moritura7n?'' 
221 



3obn ipenMeton Ikennebi?. 

IN Tuckerman's '' Life of Kenne- 
dy" is told a story which illus- 
trates the relative social advan- 
tages of politics and literature in 
ante-bellum days. Washington Irv- 
ing and Kennedy were making a 
journey together in the western 
part of New York. The two, fa- 
tigued by travel, arrived at a crowded 
hotel late at night, and found their 
request for rooms refused. Mr. 
Kennedy took the landlord aside 
and suggested that the popular au- 
thor, Irving, was entitled to special 
consideration. Not knowing that 
the gentleman who addressed him 
was one of the party, the landlord 
said: "Never heard of him, but 
that gentleman with him shall have 
a room ; he has been in Congress 
and Secretary of the Navy.'' The 



Sobn iPenDleton IkenneDg. 

story of Mr. Kennedy's career apart 
from his work in literature is of 
great interest, since he lived through 
a large portion of the formative pe- 
riod of the American nation, and 
knew intimately a large number of 
the men who directed affairs. Be- 
sides, he was no unimportant factor 
in the councils of a great party 
noted for its large number of strong 
intellects. 

In 1 8 14 a little army of volun- 
teers and citizen-soldiers marched 
from Baltimore in the direction of 
V/ashington, with the vain hope of 
saving the cajDital of the nation. 
Among that number was John P. 
Kennedy, a youth of nineteen just 
from college. From that time un- 
til his death, in 1870, he had more 
or less interest in public affairs. 
Once a member of the President's 
Cabinet, three times in Congress, 
three times a member of the Mary- 
land Legislature, a lawyer of abili- 
ty and a writer of no mean repute, 
224 



5obn iPenDleton 'Ucnnc^t'Q, 

for nearly or quite a half-century, 
he knew not only the ablest public 
men, but the greatest lawyers and 
best writers of this country, besides 
meeting many of those from, abroad. 
To know his life is to know the 
political and literary history of the 
country through a long and impor- 
tant period of time. For many 
years he was one of the accepted 
leaders gf the great Whig party, 
making many addresses and often 
occupying the same platform with 
Clay and other great leaders. Much 
of the time business interests other 
than law and politics engaged his at- 
tention ; but, notwithstanding these 
drafts upon his time and strength, 
soon after his death, in 1870, his 
works were published, and consisted 
of ten volumes. Among these were 
three novels popular in their day — 
a political satire, a memoir of the 
life of Wirt in two volumes — be- 
sides numerous essays and ad- 
dresses. 

O 225 



5obn ©etiMeton 'RcnncD^. 

Mr. Kennedy's birthplace was 
Baltimore. This was also his place 
of residence most of his life, though, 
his mother being a native of Vir- 
ginia, her son came to be very fa- 
miliar with the country and people 
there. Many journeys were made 
on horseback over portions of the 
state, particularly during the sum- 
mers. His mother was a Pendle- 
ton, and was related to many dis- 
tinguished people in Virginia and 
other states. Through his mother 
he was cousin to Philip Pendleton 
and John Esten Cooke, and was re- 
lated to David Strother, the artist, 
and author of the "Porte Crayon" 
sketches. John Kennedy, the father 
of the subject of this sketch, was of a 
Scottish family. One branch crossed 
over to Ireland, and, in part at least, 
finally reached America. John Ken- 
nedy came from the North of Ire- 
land, and became a merchant in 
Baltimore. He was married to Miss 
Nancy Pendleton, a daughter of 
226 



5obn ]pent)leton Ikenne^s. 



Philip Pendleton, of Martinsburg, 
Va., in 1794. Of his father, J. P. 
Kennedy sa^'S : " My father was 
a kind and excellent man. . . . He 
was respected and loved by his 
townsmen and was an upright, lib- 
eral, true-hearted man, who alv^ays 
did his duty and stood by his friend. 
He was involved in some unlucky 
speculations in 1804 by his partner, 
Mr. Benjamin Cox, which resulted 
in bankruptcy in 1809." A rich 
bachelor brother, Anthony Kenne- 
dy, who resided near Philadelphia, 
paid off the debts and enabled the 
father of John P. Kennedy to con- 
tinue in business in a small way. 
That same Anthony finally left 
about $70,000 to the four sons of 
his brother John, of Baltimore. 

The Kennedys were Presbj-teri- 
ans ; hence John P. Kennedy, who 
was born October 25, 1795, was 
duly baptized by a minister of that. 
Church. He was sent to school v± 
quite an early age, having various 
227 



5obn ipcnMeton IkenneDg. 

teachers, some indifferent, some 
good ; one, Mr. William Sinclair, 
becoming his friend and guide for 
many years. A miscellaneous ca- 
reer of authorship was pursued by 
the ambitious boy, while an ill- 
planned effort was made to master 
almost all studies. In an autobiog- 
raphy, taken up from time to time, 
but never made very full, Kennedy 
says : " I studied Greek a whole 
winter, by rising before daylight. 
I read Locke, Hume, Robertson ; 
all the essayists and poets, and many 
oi the metaphysicians ; studied 
Burke, Taylor, Barrow ; worked at 
chemistry, geometry, and the high- 
er mathematics, although I never 
loved them ; made copious notes on 
all the subjects that came within 
my study ; sketched, painted (very 
l)adly) ; read French, Spanish, and 
began German ; copied large por- 
tions of Pope's translations of Ho- 
mer, and wrote critical notes upon 
it as I went along ; in short, I thor- 
228 



5ohn Pendleton Ikenneds^ 



oughly overworked myself through 
a number of years in these pursuits, 
gaining mucli less advantage by the 
labor than, I ana confident, I could 
have secured, with better guidance, 
in half the time. In this reference 
to my studies I have run somewhat 
ahead of the due course of my nar- 
rative. What I have said applies 
rather to my college life than to 
that period when I was under the 
preparations of the academy." 

Kennedy remembers himself to 
have been a thoughtless youth 
while living in town, but his over- 
strained efforts at study and author- 
ship began in 1S09 when his father 
removed to " Shrub Hill," a cottage 
in the country. On account of feeble 
health his mother traveled a great 
deal, always ending the circuit with 
a stay of a month or two at Mar- 
tinsburg, Va. The embryo author 
was her companion much of the 
tim.e. He says: "My college life, 
1 p^ay say, began in 1S08, when I 
229 



5obn iPenMeton liCnneD^. 

was thirteen years old, and ended 
with a diploma in 1812. I entered 
the Baltimore College at its first 
establishment. ... In the four 
years of my college career I went 
through the usual course of Latin 
and Greek authors ; a short and im- 
perfect system of mathematics, in 
which I took the sm^allest interest; 
some physical science done up in a 
very meager volume ; and, along 
with these, a barren and absurd 
scheme of logic in Latin, and some 
incomprehensible metaphysics. 
French I acquired with considerable 
accuracy, and could speak and write 
it tolerably well. I got some little 
Spanish also, though not much." 
" Shrub Hill " was near enough for 
college to be reached by pony or the 
gig. Not the least important thing 
connected with the college was a 
debating society. Of this young 
Kennedy continued a member for 
some years after graduation. Dur- 
ing life he continued to have a high 
230 



5obn ©endleton Ikcnnedg. 

opinion of the usefulness of such 
societies. This debating society 
drifted him to the law as inevitably 
as fate, though in the meantime had 
come his soldier episode. Balti- 
more was for a time an extensive 
military garrison, with all the ex- 
citement incident to such situation. 

The troops with which young 
Kennedy marched took part in the 
battle of Bladensburg, and were 
hardly as successful as the troops at 
Fort McHenry when Key wrote 
the " Star- Spangled Banner." 

After his brief military experi- 
ence Mr. Kennedy continued his 
law studies, entering the office of 
Walter Dorsey, Esq., an eminent 
practitioner of Baltimore. This 
city, numbering five thousand in 
Revolutionary days, had increased 
in population and importance. The 
foremost lawyers, the chief actors, 
and not a few noted newspaper 
men had graced its precincts. Will- 
iam Pinkney, minister to England, 
231 



5obn penDleton '^enneDs. 

United States Senator, Attorney- 
General, soldier, orator, and schol- 
ar, made his home in Baltimore, 
and added to its fame. His son, 
Edward Coate Pinkney, wrote two 
poems, which still hold a place in 
all collections of best American 
poetry. David Hoffman and Brantz 
Mayer were not unknown as wri- 
ters in their day. Edgar Allan 
Poe lived for a time in the "City 
by the Sea." Jared Sparks, John 
Pierpont, John Neal, and other 
knights of the pen dwelt there for 
a time. The city had some resem- 
blance to an English town, and was 
possessed of an air of genial culture 
and good fellowship, most of the 
better families being intimate ac- 
quaintances and friends. A library 
existed, and reading was the fash- 
ion. Naturally a young man of 
Kennedy's taste v/ould divide time 
between law and literature, contrib- 
uting ever and anon to the papers. 
He was admitted to the bar and be- 
232 



5obn Pendleton IRenriet)^^ 

gan practise in l8i6. While the 
practise was in a measure distaste- 
ful, he was a great admirer of law- 
yers, as shown in his " Life of 
Wirt " and in " Swallow Barn." 

The bar of Baltimore was re- 
nowned at that time, and, in fact, in 
the South in ante-bellum days law- 
yers more largely than any other class 
possessed literary discrimination and 
ability. Those who knew Mr. Ken- 
nedy at that early period claimed for 
him special adaptation for his cho- 
sen pursuit. Letters wooed him 
anon. For a while he was editor of 
the Baltimore American. Later, 
with a Mr. Cruse, he issued from 
time to time the " Red Book," an 
anonymous collection of prose and 
verse somewhat similar to the " Sal- 
magundi" of Irving and Paulding. 
This appeared at intervals for two 
years, and was chiefly advantageous 
for the practise in writing which it 
gave the young men. 

From 1820 Mr. Kennedy was 
233 



^obn iPenMeton l^cnneD^. 



drawn more and more into public 
life, being in demand as a speaker 
at political meetings. Of his speak- 
ing it is said : " There was a mag- 
netic charm about his manner, and 
often a finished cadence or quiet 
humor in his tone, which, combined 
with the good sense upon which his 
appeal or protest was based, secured 
him respectful attention and encour- 
aging sympathy." He was what 
might be called a charter member 
of the Whig party, favoring John 
Quincy Adams, and supporting the 
various Whig candidates, state and 
national. His first term in the 
Maryland Legislature began in 
1820. He was reelected for the 
two following years. In 1823 he 
was appointed Secretary of Lega- 
tion to Chili, but declined the posi- 
tion. He was elected to Congress 
in 1838, serving three terms in all, 
though in 1840 he was elector on 
the Harrison ticket. In 1846 he 
was again elected to the Maryland 
234 



5obn penMeton ItenneD^. 

House of Delegates and was made 
Speaker. In 1850, during the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Fillmore, Mr. 
Kennedy became Secretary of the 
Navy, rendering permanent and 
valuable public service. On the 
election of Franklin Pierce Mr. 
Kennedy retired from public life, 
not losing, however, interest in pub- 
lic affairs, since he, like his kinsman, 
" Porte Crayon," opposed the dis- 
ruption of the Union in 1861. 

Mr. Kennedy's first marriage oc- 
curred in 1824, His wife was a 
daughter of Judge Tennant, of Bal- 
timore, and lived less than a year 
after marriage. Five years later 
he was married to Miss Elizabeth 
Gray, who survived him. This 
marriage was an extremely happy 
one during all the forty-one years 
which followed. Soon after this 
marriage he began to devote his 
evenings to more ambitious literary 
effort, though his days were sedu- 
lously occupied with legal business. 
235 



5obn f>enMeton 'KenncD^. 

The frequent visits to Virginia, be- 
gun with his mother and continued 
by himself on various horseback 
journeys, now became a part of his 
life. In company with his wife he 
visited White Sulphur Springs or 
other portions of Virginia almost 
every summer. This gave him an 
intimate knowledge of the habits, oc- 
cupations, way of looking at things — 
in fact, the life of the people of the 
Old Dominion, dear to him as the 
abode of loving kindred and the 
scene where he first learned to love 
and survey nature. Added to this, 
the large hospitality, genial manners, 
and romantic history of a state of 
which he was half a native had al- 
ways been matters of deep interest 
to him. The rising lawyer and 
politician endeavored to portray 
these things as he saw them in a 
series of elaborate sketches. 

" Swallow Barn ; or, A Sojourn 
in the Old Dominion" appeared in 
1 832. Simms published " Atalantis " 



3^obn Pendleton tkenncDi?, 

the same year, and Martin Faber 
his first novel, a year later. Tuck- 
erman, in the "Life of John P. 
Kennedy," says : " When ' Swallow 
Barn ' first appeared few vivid and 
faithful pictures of American life 
had been executed. Paulding had 
described Dutch colonial life in 
New York ; Tudor had published 
letters from New England ; Flint 
and Hall had given us graphic 
sketches of the West, toward which 
virgin domain the tide of emigra- 
tion had set ; but, with the excep- 
tion of a few impressive and fin- 
ished legendary tales from the then 
unappreciated pen of Hawthorne 
and the genuine American novels, 
the 'Spy' and the 'Pioneer,' of 
Cooper, American authorship had 
scarcely surveyed, far less invaded, 
the rich fields of local tradition and 
native life. Accordingly 'Swallow 
Barn' met with a prompt and cor- 
dial reception. Emanating from a 
man of leisure, it was hailed as the 
237 



5obn {pcnMcton •ftcnncDis. 

precursor of a series of works im- 
bued with the spirit and devoted 
to the illustration of our history, 
scenery, and manners. It was wel- 
comed by rare critical appreciation." 
"The style of 'Swallow Barn,'" 
said the New Tork Review^ " is pol- 
ished and graceful ; its distinguish- 
ing feature is its pure Americanism. 
The story of Abe and the negro 
mother, for pathos and power, is not 
surpassed by anything that has yet 
appeared in the literature of our coun- 
try." " This," remarked the A^orth 
Americafi Review^ then in its palmy 
days, " is a work of great merit and 
promise. It is attributed to a gen- 
tleman of Baltimore, already ad- 
vantageously known to the public 
by several productions of less com- 
pass and various styles= The pres- 
ent attempt proves that he combines 
with the talent and spirit he had 
previously exhibited the resources, 
perseverance, and industry that are 
necessary to the accomplishment 
238 



5obn ipcn&lcton IkenneDis. 

of extensive works. We do not 
know that we can better express 
our friendly feelings for him than 
by expressing the wish that the 
success which this production has 
met with may induce him to with- 
draw his attention from other ob- 
jects and devote himself entirely to 
the elegant pursuits of polite litera- 
ture, for which his taste and talent 
are so well adapted, and in which 
the demand for labor — to borrov/ an 
expression from a science to which 
he is no stranger — is still more 
pressing than in law, political econ- 
omy, and politics." In " Swallow 
Barn " is portrayed a ]3icture of the 
scenery, manners, and rural life of 
Virginia soon after the close of the 
Revolutionary war. Says the work 
under consideration : " S w a 1 1 o v/ 
Barn is an aristocratical old edifice 
which sits, like a brooding hen, on 
the southern bank of the James Riv- 
er." The author connects with 
this and the " Brakes," four miles 
2 239 



5obn iPenDleton fcenneDg. 

down on the same side of the river, 
much of the free and cheerful life 
of that time. There are the swamps 
and superstitions ; the woodcraft ; 
the county court ; the plantation din- 
ner, with its table, wisdom, and 
mirth ; the pride, purity, improvi- 
d e n c e , rhetoric, horsemanship, 
hunting, politics, humors, loves, 
and loyalty of native Virginian and 
visitor. A love-suit and a lawsuit 
are not forgotten, nor is the old mill, 
the spoiled old negro, the proud 
and high-spirited maiden, the crotch- 
ety and chivalric old man, the 
rides, the romps ; in fact, no detail 
is wanting to make complete the 
picture of those days of high hopes 
and quiet but perennial mirth which 
made an Arcadia of the glorious 
Old Dominion. No historian can 
afford to neglect the pages of 
*' Swallow Barn." The book had a 
run, and brought its author much 
kindly recognition. Twenty years, 
and a new edition was called for. 
240 



5obn penDletcn Ikenneo^. 

The demand has never ceased, Put- 
nams having brought out a new 
edition two years ago. 

In style Kennedy follows closely 
his friend Irving's " Bracebridge 
Hall," then ten years old and justly 
popular. In truth to local traits 
Kennedy perhaps excelled all who 
have entered upon a description of 
Virginia, though not a few have es- 
sayed that task, among whom may 
be named the original and pic- 
turesque John Smith ; Jefferson, in 
" Notes on Virginia ; " Wirt's " Let- 
ters of a British Spy ; " Irving, in 
his "Life of Washington;" Dr. 
Caruthers, in " Cavaliers of Vir- 
ginia," a work published in the 
same year as " Swallow Barn ; " 
Thackeray, in the " Virginians," of 
which Kennedy is said to have writ- 
ten the fourth chapter of the second 
volume while in Paris. 

In 1 8 19 Mr. Kennedy made a 
horseback journey from Augusta, 
Ga., through the western part of 
P 241 



5obn iPcnDleton "ftenncDis. 

South Carolina. Seeking shelter 
for the night on one occasion, he 
encountered a remarkable man, and 
heard from his lips the story of his 
exploits at a critical period of the 
Revolution. This became the basis 
of "Horseshoe Robinson," one of 
the most thrilling romances which 
America has produced. We are 
told that the ^scenery, incidents, and 
characters are faithfully reproduced 
from the reality ; that, when in after- 
years the finished story was submit- 
ted to the hero, he said : " It's all true 
and right — in its right place — except- 
ing about them women, which I dis- 
remember." The time is in that dark 
period when the British arms had 
prevailed in the South, and a few 
patriots were holding fastnesses in 
mountain and swamp from which 
to harass British and Tory, that all 
might not be destroyed. The de- 
scription of the battle of King's 
Mountain has been regarded as one 
of the best ever written. "Horse- 
242 



5obn ipenDleton IkenneDt!. 

shoe Robinson" was published in 
1S36, and was received with marked 
favor. By another hand it was ef- 
fectively dramatized nearly a quar- 
ter of a century later. 

" Rob of the Bowl," Mr. Kenne- 
dy's third work, appeared in 1838, 
the year in which he was first 
elected to Congress. No doubt his 
public services for the next few 
years cut short further excursions 
into the domain of romantic fiction. 
"Rob of the Bowl" describes the 
province of Maryland in the days 
of the second Lord Baltimore, when 
the capital was Port St. Mary's, on 
the left bank of St. Mary's River. 
The key-note is historical. The 
dangers, the problems, the jealous- 
ies, the smuggling, the bitter feuds 
between the Church of England 
and that of Rome — all are vividly 
brought out. The characters make 
strong figures as they are portrayed. 
Being at the storm-center of poli- 
tics, so to speak, his observations 
243 



5obn penDleton Ikcnncb^* 

revealed themselves in 1S40 as 
" Quodlibet : Containing Some An- 
nals Thereof by Solomon Second- 
thought, Schoolmaster." Various 
phases of a partizan campaign are 
portrayed v/ith ludicrous solemnity, 
" Memoir of the Life of William 
Wirt," in two volumes, by Kenne- 
dy, came from the press in 1849. 
During Mr. Wirt's practise at the 
Baltimore bar Mr. Kennedy had 
become his intimate friend. Mr. 
Wirt, rising from an obscure family 
and without a college education, had 
by patient study, noble ambition, 
•generosity of heart, and grace of 
manner won his way to an honor- 
able position in his profession and 
a warm place in the hearts of his 
friends. Like Mr. Kennedy, he 
loved literature, had gifts in that 
field, and ever hoped to be able to 
turn aside from the arduous strug- 
gle involved by straitened cir- 
cumstances that he might attempt 
serious work in the field chosen 
2-14 



5obn iPeuDleton IkenneDs* 

of his heart. His " Life of Patrick 
Henry," " Letters of a British Spy," 
and various sketches are only to- 
kens of that longing. On the death 
of Mr. Wirt, in 1834, Mr. Kennedy 
had delivered before the Maryland 
bar a eulogy on Wirt. This was a 
graceful and eloquent tribute which 
delighted his auditors and led, in 
course of time, to his selection as 
biographer. 

Mr. Kennedy took the Union 
side at the breaking out of the 
w^ar. At the commencement of 
the third year he wrote a series of 
letters for the National Intelli- 
gencer. At the close of the war 
these were collected into a volume 
under the title of " Mr. Ambrose's 
Letters on the Rebellion." He con- 
tinued more or less interested in 
public affairs until his death, which 
occurred August v'^^ 1870. 

Some one has said of Mr. Ken- 
nedy : " His life is greater than his 
works." His correspondence was 
245 



5obn penDleton IkenneDg* 

extensive, and his addresses Vv^ere 
of more than passing interest on 
account of the loftiness of tone and 
thought as well as the literary ex- 
cellence. He was ever ready with 
a word of encouragement for young 
people in their struggles and dis- 
couragements, and no one was more 
delighted in their successes. His 
letters to literary men ever flow 
with cordial encouragement. Their 
projects found in him a sympathet- 
ic supporter. Washington Irving 
and Kennedy took to each other on 
first acquaintance and this soon ri- 
pened into lasting friendship. Vis- 
its were exchanged, and their let- 
ters to each other were in the most 
cordial terms. There was a tone 
of pleasant banter mutually inter- 
changed between " Geoffrey Cray- 
on " and " My Dear Horseshoe." 
His pleasant letters to Willis, Pres- 
cott, Simms, J. R. Thompson, Poe, 
and others, showed his unvarying 
interest in American letters. Thack- 
246 



5obn iPenDletcn Ikenneds. 

eray and other literary men visiting 
Baltimore found in him a ready co- 
adjutor. While Secretary of the 
Navy he fostered the expedition of 
Dr. Kane to the arctic seas as 
well as Commodore Perry's mis- 
sion to Japan. Richardson says : 
" Kennedy, like Paulding, filled the 
office of Secretary of the Navy, 
and well illustrated that union of 
wholesome manliness with bookish 
tastes which was beginning to be a 
characteristic of our literature. The 
turmoil of American politics has 
over and over again left place, in 
diplomatic service or public station 
at home, for historians, essayists, 
novelists, or poets, who also have 
been, like Kennedy, efiicient and 
honored servants of their country 
and leaders of their party. 
Had Kennedy's graceful pen been 
driven by a genius more forcefully 
creative, the result of his lifelong 
devotion to literature would have 
been considerable." 
247 



3obn jEeten Coofte* 

A YOUNG lawyer of Rich- 
mond, Va., published a novel 
in 1853, the scene of which 
was laid in the Valley of Virginia, 
so soon to be shaken by the tread 
of armies and made famous with 
the blazonry of stirring deeds. The 
success of this first effort sufficed to 
take the author from the bar into 
the fields of romance. The story 
-was " Leather Stocking and Silk," 
published by Harper & Brothers. 
The author's name was not then at- 
tached to the book, but was soon to 
grace the title-pages of other and 
better works. The " Virginia Co- 
medians," in two volumes, by John 
Esten Cooke, appeared in 1854. 
The same year was likewise pro- 
ductive of the " Youth of Jeffer- 
son," based on the letters of that 
statesman. The newly found pen 
248 



of the rising author was not allowed 
much rest, as " Ellie," a novel, was 
published at Richmond in the fol- 
lowing year. Again, the next year, 
the "Last of the Foresters" ap- 
peared from New York. The year 
1859 was signalized by the publica- 
tion of "Henry St. John, Gentleman," 
a tale of 1774-75, a sequel to the 
" Comedians." In addition to these 
more ambitious works, the same 
facile pen had written regularly for 
Putnam's and Harper's Magazines, 
besides furnishing prose and verse 
for the Southern Literary Messen- 
ger^ around which even then clus- 
tered memories of Poe. 

These few years had been pro- 
lific, but Virginia called for her 
sons, and the pen was laid aside for 
the sw^ord. The private became 
the captain, and served on the staff 
of Gens. Stuart and Pendleton. 
The heroic deeds which he wit- 
nessed thenceforward projected 
themselves into his best romances. 
249 



Jobu JSstcn Cooke. 



Capt. Cooke is par excellence the 
novelist as well as historian of the 
matchless campaigns of Lee and 
Jackson. 

John Esten Cooke was born at 
Winchester, Va., November 3, 1830. 
His father, John Rogers Cooke, 
was one of the most distinguished 
lawyers of Virginia, practising for 
more than forty years. During 
that time he took part in nearly all 
the great cases carried to the higher 
courts. In 1829 he was a member 
of the convention which framed the 
constitution of Virginia, and was a 
member of the committee which 
drafted that instrument, serving with 
Chief -Justice Marshall, ex- Presi- 
dent Madison, and John Randolph. 
Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, the 
uncle of John Esten, was a Federal 
soldier during the war, although his 
son-m-law was the brave and dash- 
ing Confederate cavalry leader. Gen. 
J. E. B. Stuart. John Esten Cooke's 
mother was Miss Maria, daughter 
250 



5obn Bsten Cooke* 

of Philip Pendleton, of Martins- 
burg, Va., and hence a sister of J. 
P. Kennedy's mother. Some one 
has claimed that the chief families 
of the Old Dominion are all re- 
lated. Who has not heard of the 
poem " Florence Vane ? " This has 
been translated into many languages, 
and has been set to music by cele- 
brated composers. Other poems by 
Philip Pendleton Cooke were very 
popular. " Froissort Ballads," and 
other poems, were edited by this 
brother of the younger novelist. 

Mr. J. E. Cooke's early boyhood 
was spent at " Glengary," his fa- 
ther's country-seat, in the Valley of 
Virginia. When he was ten years 
of age his father removed to Rich- 
mond to practise in the court of 
appeals. John Esten attended an 
ordinary Virginia school, his last 
teacher being Dr. Burke, of Rich- 
mond, an excellent teacher of lan- 
ofuaores. He left school at the acre 
of sixteen to study law with his fa- 
251 



5obn S6tcn Coofte* 



ther, and was admitted to the bar 
before he was twenty - one. He 
seems to have practised three or 
four years, but, judging from the 
rapidity with which his books came 
from the press after the first was 
published, the disciple of Blackstone 
was already Intent upon authorship. 
What leads a young man toward 
literary effort is often difiicult to 
discover. The Southern Literary 
Messenger had attracted favorable 
notice. Some men of ability were 
among its contributors. William 
Wirt had dabbled in literature, his 
cousin Kennedy had entered the 
field of letters and plucked not a 
few laurels. Cooper had found 
fertile fields in the North, and Will- 
iiam Gilmore Simms was busy with 
the legends and history of the 
South. 

This is Mr. Cooke's own version 

of his literary aspirations : " My 

aim has been to paint the Virginia 

phase of American society, to do 

252 



5oI)n ^5tcn Goolie* 



for the Old Dominion what Cooper 
has done for the Indians, Simms for 
the Revolutionary drama in South 
Carolina, Irving for the Dutch 
Knickerbockers, and Hawthorne for 
the weird Puritan life of New Eng- 
land." It is said that Irving exer- 
cised a strong- spell over the imagi- 
nation of Ccoke. Mr. Eugene L. 
Didier tells cf a visit made to Irv- 
ing as one of the brightest recollec- 
tions of John Esten Cooke's life. 
From his youth he had admired 
" Geoffrey Crayon." " Bram Bones," 
" Rip Van Winkle," and " Ichabod 
Crane " had been real beings. How 
delightful, then, must have been an- 
ticipations of meeting with the vet- 
eran author at " Sunnyside ! " This 
is the story : The first sight of the 
object of his youthful admiration 
was certainly a disappointment. He 
was short and stout, and his coun- 
tenance gave no outward indication 
of the intelligence within. He 
looked more like a plain country 



5obn Bsten Coolie. 

gentleman with a taste for raising 
the best breed of cattle or the big- 
gest turnips than a man possessing 
the rare literary taste of the author 
of the "Sketch Book." But it 
soon became apparent that there 
was more about the serene old gen- 
tleman than was seen at the first 
glance. The tranquillity of his man- 
ner was not the torpor of a dull in- 
tellect, but the repose of power. 
He was full of anecdotes of the au- 
thors and artists whom he had known 
during his long and varied expe- 
rience at home and abroad : Scott, 
Moore, Allston, Leslie, G. P. R. 
James, Dickens, etc. He spoke of 
the frequent visits of Louis Napo- 
leon to " Sunnyside " on his way to 
West Point, when he was in Amer- 
ica in 1S39. He was very silent 
and reserved, but was perfectly well- 
bred. " Now he is an emperor ! " 
exclaimed Irving. " What a strange 
world this ! I knew the empress 
when she was a little girl in Ma 
254 



5obn JBstcn coofte. 



drid, and have often dandled her on 
my knee — Eugenie Montijo. I saw 
her afterward, when she was a 
grown girl, with remarkably fine 
head and beautiful bust and shoul- 
ders. She used to go to the fancy 
balls in Spain as a female mousque- 
taire. The last time I was in Wash- 
ington, and saw Calderon, the Span- 
ish minister, he said to me : ' Good 
heaven, Irving, think of it! little 
Eugenie Montijo an empress ! 
Hump ! hump ! ' " 

We are told that Mr. Cooke was 
possessed of a very attractive per- 
sonal appearance. He was of me- 
dium height, well-formed, and had 
dark features, fine eyes w^th win- 
ning expression, and that courtly 
grace which he was wont to de- 
scribe in the Old Virginia cavalier. 
A devoted student, he preferred 
that life to all others. What might 
have been his career or his choice 
of subjects but for the war it is^ of 
course, difficult to surmise. Ke had 
3 255 



3^obn Esten Coofte. 



shown a preference for capital and 
brocade rather than for wigwam 
and cabin. The statesmen and beau- 
ties of picturesque old Williamsburg 
seem to have held a fascination for 
him. In and near the streets and 
mansions, the Raleigh Tavern, and 
the theater of what was once the 
Southern Boston, occurs the action 
of the " Virginia Comedians." Of 
the sequel to this work, " Henry 
St. John, Gentleman," James Wood 
Davidson says : " This again is a 
tale of pre- Revolutionary days, lo- 
cated principally in the county of 
Prince George, Va., and is full of 
the fire and iron of those times. A 
Southern critic has pronounced this, 
'by great odds, the best American 
historical novel,' and there are 
weighty reasons for the opinion." 
Of this sto.ry, nearly a quarter of a 
century after the issuance of the 
first edition, its author wrote as fol- 
lows : " This era of fullest develop- 
ment vras that chosen by the writer 
258 



jobn ^Bten Qoo^c. 



for his picture of Virginia society. 
It is the moment when all the fea- 
tures which distinguish the race are 
seen in the boldest relief. What 
precedes it is the period when the 
community, in process of forma- 
tion, has lived in and for itself. 
What follows it is the new age, 
when the colony has become a unit 
of the republic. That fact neces- 
sarily worked a very great change 
in society ; the new regime effaced 
the old ; and thus the years just 
preceding the final conflict with Eng- 
land present the fullest and most 
characteristic picture of the Virginia 
people. The turbulent old adven- 
turers had been succeeded by quiet 
citizens ; the rough swordsmen who 
had fought with Bacon against 
Charles II. by ruffled dignitaries — 
powdered planters, who lived in 
luxury on their estates amid swarms 
of dependents, administered justice 
in the county courts, watched over 
their Church as energetic vestry- 
Q 257 



5obn Bsten Coolie. 



men, sat as members of the burgess- 
es, and ruled society as its natural 
lords. The rough old society had 
thus flowered into what very much 
resembled an aristocracy ; but the 
student, looking closer, will see 
many traits to modify the picture. 
Under the surface of the pompous 
old " nabob ' was the obstinate man- 
hood of a strong race. His misfor- 
tune is that his critics have looked 
only at the surface. They have 
been blinded by that imposing ap- 
paratus of class distinctions, by 
what one might see anywhere in 
America at that time, the spectacle 
of superbly dressed men and wom- 
en in silks and laces rolling in their 
chariots, making formal Old World 
bows as they moved in the royal 
minuet, superbly conscious, one 
would say, that the world was made 
only for themselves. But all this 
splendor of living did not prevent 
the Virginia planter from being a 
type of the highest manhood. In 
258 



Jobn JBetcn Coofte. 

all times he had stood up for his 
right as a freeman." 

At the beginning of the war 
John Esten Cooke entered the Con- 
federate army as a j^rivate, serving 
first in the artillery and afterward 
in the cavalry. He was on the 
staff of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart a large 
portion of the time, and took part 
in most of the battles fought in 
Virginia. At Lee's surrender he 
was inspector-general of the horse- 
artillery of the army of Northern 
Virginia. The highest encomiums 
have been passed upon his soldierly 
qualities, but his pen seems not to 
have been altogether idle even in 
those stirring times, since a sketch 
of Stonewall Jackson v/as published 
in Richmond in 1S63, which proved 
to be his production, and which 
was enlarged in 1S66 to "Life of 
Stonewall Jackson." At the close 
of the war Capt. Cooke returned to 
the Valley of Virginia, the home of 
his early childhood, and the scene 
259 



5obn :!e0ten Coofte. 

of much of the war drama where 
he had marched and fought with 
the " foot cavalry " of Jackson, and 
where "Jeb'* Stuart's bold riders 
had fearlessly followed their lead- 
er's plume and song. 

In 1867 John Esten Cooke was 
most happily married to Miss Mary 
FrancesPage, and their home thence- 
forward was the " Briars," in the 
beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. 
His neighbors were the Nelsons, 
the Pages, the Randolphs, and oth- 
ers of the best families of Virginia. 
He lived and enjoyed until his death, 
in 1 886, the free and easy life of 
the Virginia gentleman — plenty of 
horses, plenty of dogs, with hunt- 
ing and fishing, reading and writing, 
to vary the monotony. He had 
ever been a lover of good books, 
and gathered around him a goodly 
collection. He keenly enjoyed the 
sport of hunting, and there was fine 
sport in the Shenandoah mountains, 
and fish abounded in the mountain 
230 



3-obn JBsicn Cooke. 

streams. Six o'clock in the morn- 
ing found him in the library, as he 
considered the early morning hours 
the best for literary work. 

The first book which Capt. Cooke 
published after the war was " Sur- 
ry of Eagle's Nest." This is said 
to have been written in the autumn 
of 1S65, though no doubt much of 
the material had already been pre- 
pared. It is difficult to conceive 
how a more thrilling war romance 
could be written. Pelham, Ashby, 
Stuart, Jackson, Lee — where could 
such actors be had for another 
drama? The story was not one 
which the novelist had dreamed, 
was not one whose materials had 
been gathered by reading or hear- 
say, but he recorded what he had 
seen Lee, Jackson, and Stuart do? 
and what he had heard them say. 
The author had " hung up a dingy 
gray uniform and battered old sa- 
ber," and proposed to tell the story 
for his children and grandchildren 
261 



5obn Bsten Gooke. 



as they clustered in fancy about his 
knees. This was a work of love 
such as had fallen to the lot of few 
men. Says the writer : " I think 
those dear coming grandchildren 
v/ill take an interest in my adven- 
tures. They will belong to the 
fresh, new generation ; and all the 
jealousies, hatreds, and corroding 
passions of the present epoch will 
have disappeared by that time. 
Simple curiosity will replace the 
old hatred, the bitter antagonism of 
the partizan will yield to the philo- 
sophic interest of the student, and 
the events and personages of this 
agitated period will be calmly dis- 
cussed by the winter fireside. Kow 
Lee looked and Stuart spoke, how 
Jackson lived that wondrous life of 
his, and Ashby charged upon his 
milk-v/hite steed — of this the com- 
ing generations will talk, and I 
think they will take more interest 
in such things than in the most 
brilliant arguments about secession. 
262 



3-obn iB5tm Coolie. 



Therefore, good reader, whom I 
will never see in the flesh, I am 
going to make some pictures, if I 
can, of what I have seen. Come ! 
Perhaps, as you follow me, you 
will live in the stormy days of a 
convulsed epoch, breathe its fiery 
atmosphere, and see its mighty 
forms as they defile before you in a 
long and noble line. To revive 
those days, surround you with that 
atmosphere, and reproduce those 
figures which have descended into 
the tomb, is the aim which I pro- 
posed to myself in writing these 
memoirs." 

It might seem that " Surry of 
Eagle's Nest " has too many war 
heroes to move easily, yet among 
them moves the hero. Col. Surry, 
the proud May Beverly, the brave 
Mordaunt, the delightful Violet 
Grafton, and a well-drawn villain^ 
Fenwick. The pathos of the 
mighty struggle pours itself into 
the book as one by one Pelham, 
263 



5obn B6tcn Goofte. 

Ashby, Jackson, and Stuart fall in 
battle. We catch something of the 
sense of desolation which crept into 
the hearts of the survivors when so 
many heroes had perished. 

The story became popular imme- 
diately on publication, seven edi- 
tions being- sold in a short time. 
The transition from " Surry of Ea- 
gle's Nest " to the " Life of Stone- 
wall Jackson " was easy, and was 
made the following year. The au- 
thor had now found his field, and 
deeds of heroic endeavor had found 
a faithful and enthusiastic chroni- 
cler. No wonder need be expressed 
that he should work a field v/hich 
had proved so ]3opular. In close suc- 
cession follo\ved " Mohun," " Hilt 
to Hilt," " Hammer and Rapier," 
and "Wearing the Gray" — all writ- 
ten con amore by a man who knew 
what he wrote, and all having about 
them an atmosphere of chivalric 
deeds. A brief return to colonial 
Virginia occurs in " Fairfax ; or, 
264 



S^obn iBstcn Cooke. 

The Master of Greenway Court," 
which appeared in iS6S. The com- 
plaint is made that the old earl, who 
had always been a figure of interest, 
did not find in this case a historian 
who devoted a sufficient amount of 
time and attention to the elucidation 
of his subject. How could he re- 
turn to those earlier days with char- 
acters of larger proportions so near 
at hand? Complaint is made again 
that Virginia in the war hid from 
his vision all men and deeds not of 
her borders. 

John Esten Cooke must ever re- 
main preeminently the novelist of 
the war from the Southern stand- 
point. While ever an ardent South- 
erner, he wrote without bitterness. 
Of the times when the Grays and 
Blues opposed each other he says : 
••' I think of it without bitterness. 
God did it — God the almighty, the 
all- wise — for his own purpose. I do 
not indulge in repinings or reflect 
with rancor upon the issue of the 
265 



5obn JBetcn Qoo'kc* 



struggle. I prefer recalling tiie 
stirring adventures, the brave voices, 
the gallant faces ; even in that tre- 
mendous drama of 1864-65 I can 
find somethinof besides blood and 



o 



Perhaps a complete bibliography 
of Capt. Cooke's works has not 
been made, but in addition to those 
already mentioned in this sketch 
the following may be found in Ap- 
pleton's "Cyclopedia : " " Out of the 
Foam » ( 1859) ; " The Heir of Gay- 
mount" (1870); "Life of Gen. R. 
E. Lee" (1871); "Dr. Van Dyke, 
a Story of Virginia in the Last 
Century" (1872); "Her Majesty 
the Queen" (1873); "Pretty Mrs. 
Gaston, and Other Stories " (1874) ; 
"Justin Harley" (1874); " Canol- 
les, a Story of Cornwallis' Vir- 
ginia Campaign (1877) ; "Profess- 
or Pressensee, a Story" (1S78) ; 
" Virginia Bohemians and Stories 
of the Old Dominion" (1879); 
"Virginia: A History of the Peo- 
266 



5obn jBstcn Coolie. 



pie," Boston (18S3); "Maurice 
Mystery" (1885). 

Much of Cooke's writing lies 
scattered through the pages of va- 
rious periodicals, and has never 
been collected into book form. His 
" History of Virginia," for the Com- 
monwealth Series, is one of the 
most delightful volumes of that en- 
tire series, and is itself as wonder- 
ful as a romance. Just a short 
time before his death he said : " Mr. 
Howells and the other realists have 
crowded me out of the popular re- 
gard as a novelist, and have brought 
the kind of fiction I write into gen- 
eral disfavor. I do not complain of 
that, for they are right. They see, 
as I do, that fiction should faithful- 
ly reflect life, and they obey the 
law, while I was born too soon, and 
am now too old to learn my trade 
anew ; but in literature, as in every- 
thing else, advance should be the 
law, and he who stands still has no 
right to complain if he is left be- 
267 



5obn JB6tcn Cooftc. 

hind. Besides, the fires of ambition 
are burned out of me, and I am se- 
renely happy. My wheat-fields are 
green as I look out from the porch 
of the ' Briars,' the corn rustles in 
the wind, and the great trees give 
me shade upon the lawn. My three 
children are growing up in such 
nurture and admonition as their 
race has always deemed fit, and I 
am not only content but very happy, 
and much too lazy to entertain any 
other feeling toward my victors 
than one of warm friendship and 
sincere approval." Notwithstand- 
ing this admission against himself, 
the sale of his books, particularly 
his war stories, continues, and is 
likely to continue until the deeds 
they portray have faded much far- 
ther into the dim distance. Cooke 
did not altogether neglect poetry, 
though one poem by his brother 
outshines all that he ^vrote. 

Even while happy at the 
" Briars " amid his pleasant sur- 
268 



5obn jEsten CooTie. 

roundings and with his wife, whom 
he found so Hke an angel, we can not 
but imagine him sometimes heaving 
a sigh and dropping a tear for his 
fallen comrades, particularly for the 
gallant Stuart, whose plumes he had 
so often seen waving in the desper- 
ate charge. No more fitting close 
can be made than to give a portion 
of Capt. Cooke'o 

BEREA VED. 
Dear comrades, dead this many a day, 

I saw you weltering in your gore, 
After three days amid the pines 

On the Rappahannlftck shore, 
When the joy of life was much to me, 

But your warm hearts were more. 

You lived and died true to your flag, 
And now your wounds are healed, but 
sore 
Are many hearts that think of you 

Where you have gone before. 
Peace, comrade! God bound up those 
forms! 
They are whole forevermore! 

Those lips this broken vessel touched; 
His, too, the man we all adore, 

269 



3obn jBstcn Coofee. 

That cavalier of cavaliers, 

Whose voice will ring no more, 

Whose plume will float amid the storm 
Of battle nevermore ! 



Never was cavalier like ours, 
Not Rtipert in the years before! 

And when his stern, hard work was 
done, 
His griefs, joys, battles o'er, 

His mighty spirit rode the storm 
And led his men once more. 

He lies beneath his native sod. 

Where violets spring or frost is hoar; 
He recks not; charging squadrons watch 

His raven plume no more, 
That smile we'll see, that voice we'll 
hear, 
That hand we'll touch no more! 
270 



©tber Soutbern IRoveliete* 

THE romance of history per- 
tains to no human annals more 
strikingly than to the early 
settlement of Virginia. The mind 
of the reader at once reverts to the 
names of Raleigh, Smith, and Po- 
cahontas. The traveler's memory 
pictures in a moment the ivy-man- 
tled ruin of old Jamestown." Thus 
vs^rote Dr. William A. Caruth- 
ERS, in the year 1834, at the head 
of the first chapter of the " Cava- 
liers of Virginia." Dr. Caruthers 
was born in Virginia about the be- 
ginning of the century, and died at 
Savannah, Ga., where he had fol- 
lowed his profession for some years. 
He was a student of Washington 
College, Virginia, in 181 S, and after- 
ward was educated as a physician. 
The record of his works runs as 
follows: The " L^avaliers of Vir- 
ginia" (1834), the "Knights of 
the Horseshoe " ( 1845), ^^^ " ^^^'^' 
4 271 



©tber Soutbccn Wtovcliste* 



tuckian in New York," and a " Life 
of Dr. Caldwell." He wrote for 
the Kiiickerbocker^ of New York, 
and for the Magnolia and other 
Southern magazines. 

The " Cavaliers of Virginia " is 
a spirited historical romance, the 
scene of which is laid at Jamestown, 
in the days of Gov. Berkeley, and 
one of the chief actors is the brave, 
and — the world now says — patriotic 
Nathaniel Bacon. We have here 
brought to view pictures of cavalier 
and lady, savage and wilderness, 
with loves, hates, and jealousies, 
showing that the people who found- 
ed a great commonwealth were hu- 
man. At the close of the work 
we find the following "Addenda : " 
" Should the author's humble labors 
continue to amuse his countrymen, 
he will very soon lay before them 
the ' Tramontane Order ; or, The 
Knights of the Golden Horseshoe,' 
an order of knighthood in the Old 
Dominion which first planted the 
British standard beyond the Blue 
272 



©tber Soutbern IRovelists. 



Mountains." As we have seen, it 
was more than ten years before he 
fulfilled the promise of the "Adden- 
da." Perhaps his work did not 
"amuse his countrymen" of Vir- 
ginia, as he seems to have left the 
state, first for Alabama, afterward 
settling in Georgia. In course of 
time came the " Knights," and we 
could not very well spare the 
" Cocked Hat Gentry," since much 
of the story is history in which the 
real names of the actors are given. 
Spotswood and his followers found 
it necessary to shoe their horses for 
the first time after leaving the soft 
soil of the tide-water region. This 
became the emblem of knighthood 
on their return. To the peerless 
riders who with him had laid open 
the fair valley of Virginia Gov. 
Spotswood presented ornaments of 
gold wrought into the shape of 
horseshoes. The inscription on one 
side was, " Tramontane Order ;" on 
the other, ^'■Slc juvat transcendere 
monies?'' The literary instinct was 
E 273 



©tber Soutbccn TRovcllgts. 



strong in Dr. Caruthers. Although 
his house and books were burned, 
he continued to gather material, and 
brought out his works at a time when 
his people were not clamoring very 
loudly for an output of literature. 

Nathaniel Bevei^ly Tucker 
is said to have excelled any of his 
Virginia contemporaries as a writer. 
His novel, the " Partizan Leader," 
made quite a sensation. It was 
first published in 1836, but was sup- 
pressed for political reasons. The 
work was privately printed with a 
date twenty years in advance of the 
time of publication, and tells by an- 
ticipation almost exactly what took 
place a little more than twenty years 
later. The story opens when the 
South and North have separated, 
and gives pictures of Virginia occu- 
pied by troops, as happened during 
the war between the states. The 
book was printed in New York in 
1 86 1 by those hostile to the South 
to prove that secession had been 
prearranged for a quarter of a cen- 



©tber Southern Novelists* 



tury. The reprint was called a 
" Key to the Disunion Conspiracy." 
Beverly Tucker, as he was usually 
called, was the author of one other 
novel, " George Balcombe," besides 
essays and various law publications. 
He was born in 1784, and died in 
1 85 1. He was educated at William 
and Mary, and practised lav^ in Mis- 
souri, where for a time he was 
judge of the circuit court. Re- 
turning to Virginia, he was elected 
Professor of Law in William and 
Mary in 1834, and held the place 
until his death. Nathaniel Beverly 
was the second son of St. George 
Tucker, and half - brother of John 
Randolph. His father had written 
one notable poem, as we have seen 
elsewhere, besides dramas, satirical 
odes, essays on slavery, and various 
works on law. 

Since a large number of the 
Tuckers have been literary men as 
v/ell as jurists, it will simplify the 
matter to say : St. George, the fa- 
ther of Nathaniel Beverly, was born 
275 



©tber Soutbern IRovclists. 



in Bermuda Island in 1852, came to 
Virginia to receive his education, 
and finally settled there, bearing 
arms in defense of the colonies in 
1777. The following year he was 
married to Frances Bland, the moth- 
er of John Randolph. George 
Tucker, jurist, essayist, and novel- 
ist, was a relative, and was edu- 
cated by St. George. He was the 
author of numerous works, inclu- 
ding a novel, the " Valley of the 
Shenandoah," which was reprinted 
in England, and translated into Ger- 
man. Henry St. George, the 
elder brother of Nathaniel Beverly, 
was a jurist, author of various law 
publications, judge, and member of 
Conp^ress. The third son of Hen- 
ry St. George, St. George, Jr., 
died from exposure in the seven 
days' battles around Richmond. 
He was the author of " Hansford, 
a Tale of Bacon's Rebellion," pub- 
lished at Richmond before the war. 
One writer for youth should not 
be omitted from this collection, 
27G 



©tber Soutbcrn Bovelists, 



though his works are so well known 
that an extended notice is unneces- 
sary. Francis Robert Gould- 
ING was a native of Georgia, and 
was born September 28, 18 10, in 
Liberty County, near Midway. He 
died August 21, 1881, and is bur- 
ied at Roswell, Ga. Dr. Goulding 
graduated in the University of Geor- 
gia, at Athens, in 1830, and finished 
the course in the Presbyterian The- 
ological Seminary at Columbia, 
S. C, in 1833. The failure of his 
voice debarred him from preaching, 
and he became a writer of books, 
being surprised at his own success. 
A desire to instruct and amuse his 
own children caused him to com- 
mence the "Young Marooners" in 
1847. The work was not com- 
pleted until 1850, and was two more 
years in finding a publisher. It 
was declined in New York and 
neglected for a time in Philadelphia, 
until on one occasion the one who 
passes upon the manuscript in such 
cases chanced to make a casual ex- 
277 



©tber Soutbern 1Ro\?eIists. 



amination of the " Young Maroon- 
ers," as the work was called, after 
having been named two or three 
times. The passing glance of the 
manuscript - reader deepened into 
intense interest, and the work was 
brought out at once. Three edi- 
tions were issued the first year, and 
it was soon reprinted in England 
and Scotland by at least half a doz- 
en houses. Some one called it a 
" Crusoic book for boys, and the 
best of its class." Be it boy or 
man who begins the story, he is 
likely to finish, and then procure 
" Marooner's Island," a sequel, pub- 
lished in 1868. These works have 
been a source of pleasure and profit 
to thousands of young people in 
both America and England. Dr. 
Goulding's other works are : " Lit- 
tle Josephine " (1848), "Confeder- 
ate Soldier's Hymn-Book " (1863), 
"Little Boy" (1869), and the 
" Woodruff Stories " ( 1870). 

If we take popularity as the cri- 
terion of merit, the women of the 
278 



©tbet Soutbcrn IRovelists. 



South have not been second to the 
men as novelists, though how much 
literature has been produced poster- 
ity must determine. It is said that 
ninety-three thousand volumes of 
Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz's sto- 
ries were sold in three years. Her 
nativity was Massachusetts, but she 
resided several years at Chapel 
Hill, N. C, where her husband 
was professor in the college. They 
lived in various Southern States, 
chiefly Alabama, Florida, and Geor- 
gia, and were engaged in teaching. 
Her work was done in the South, 
and her sympathies were ever South- 
ern. Perhaps the best known of 
her publications were the " Mob 
Cap" and "Aunt Patty's Scrap 
Bag." Some of her other works 
were " Marcus Warland " and the 
" Planter's Northern Bride." Her 
view of the condition of the slave 
was very diverse to that expressed 
in " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 

A remarkable case of sowing in 
tears and reaping in gladness is 
279 



©tber Soutbern IRov^ellsts. 



shown in the account given by Mrs. 
E. D. E. N. SouTHWORTH of how- 
she wrote "Retribution" while in 
charge of a school difficult to man- 
age, and w^ith her child at the door 
of death. Beginning with this in 
1849, a long train of sensational sto- 
ries followed in rapid succession. 

As various publications have con- 
tinued to come from the pen of 
" Marion Harland " in recent years, 
one can hardly realize that her first 
work, "Alone," came from the press 
in 1854. This for a time required 
a new American edition every few 
weeks, was reprinted in England, 
and translated into French. As 
"Hidden Path," "Moss Side," 
" Nemesis," " Miriam," "At Last," 
" Helen Gardner," and man}'- oth- 
ers, came from a busy pen, hardly 
one reached a sale of less than ten 
thousand within a year after publi- 
cation. Mrs. Mary Virginia 
Terhune (" Marion Harland") is 
the daughter of Samuel P. Hawes, 
who was a merchant of Richmond, 
280 



©tber Soutbem IRoveliBts. 



Va. In 1856 she was married to 
Rev. E. P. Terhune, who was then 
a Virginia pastor, but afterward 
took work in New Jersey. 

Possibly no American w^riter of 
fiction has had so many readers as 
Mrs. Augusta Jane Evans Wil- 
son. Although yet living, she has 
not published anything for some 
years. She has not been a prolific 
writer, but her works have had 
large sales. Mrs. Wilson was born 
at Columbus, Ga., May 8, 1835. On 
her mother's side she v/as descended 
from the Howards, one of the most 
honorable families of the state. 

Her mother was to a large ex- 
tent her teacher. When she was 
scarcely ten years of age her fa- 
ther moved to San Antonio, Tex. 
The Alamo and its gloomy story 
made a deep impression upon the 
tender child, hence " Inez, a Tale 
of the Alamo," was written when 
the author was fifteen. The Har- 
pers published this stor}'- in 1855. 
Four years later her " Beulah " ap- 
281 



©tber Soutbcrn IRovelists* 



l^eared. This has been said to be 
her own life story. However that 
may be, " Beulah " ran through 
many editions in a few months. 
James Wood Davidson says : "The 
author of ' Beulah ' was styled the 
Charlotte Bronte of America. The 
compliment had some meaning in 
it." " Macaria " was published at 
Richmond in 1863, and was, per- 
haps, the first Southern war novel 
of the late war. Of course the sub- 
ject and the times would have made 
it popular, had the w^riter not al- 
ready reached her triumph. " St. 
Elmo," the much praised and much 
read, but also much censured, ap- 
peared in 1866. The little heroine 
knew so much, the hero was so 
strange, the language w^as so " high- 
flown!" Nevertheless, the book 
brought the author large returns. 
Her succeeding works are : " Vash- 
ti," " Infelice," and "At the Mercy 
of Tiberius." " Beulah " Evans, as 
she was sometimes called, was mar- 
ried to Mr. L. M. Wilson, of Mo- 
282 



©tber Soutbern Novelists. 



bile, Ala., in iS68. She resided 
near that city, in a beautiful home 
bought with the sales of her books, 
until the death of her husband, when 
she took up her residence in Mobile. 
While much of the writings of 
ante-bellum times is considered by 
the reader of to-day a dreary waste 
of uninteresting pages, one must 
not imagine that these pages do not 
contain here and there wide patches 
of the bluest skies, the glintings of 
the mountain stream, the dewy fra- 
grance of sun-kissed flowers, and 
the ecstatic songs of Southern birds, 
as well as the genial life of a people 
of a now half - remembered past. 
Many of the works mentioned in 
the preceding pages have no inter- 
est except as way-marks to sho\'^r 
by what stages of effort our people- 
have reached their present status in 
literature. Some will have interest 
only to the historian and to the stu- 
dent who keep track of the social 
conditions of a people in their va- 
rious stages of progress. Others 
283 



Otbcx Soutbcrn TRovcUsts. 



will command a measure of interest 
as long as the world cares for 
dauntless deeds of high emprise, 
and for men of sincere convictions 
with noble courage and true chival- 
ry. To the one who reads for pas- 
time or merely to catch the transient 
phases of current life, most of these 
works are not even names. Liter- 
ature has come to be a business, 
and the newer writers have caught 
the artistic form in a higher degree. 
In fact, the art of the seer is often 
in higher repute than his vision and 
message. But we appreciate the 
fact that the successors to these pio- 
neers in the South knov/ how to 
handle the tools of their craft to a 
better advantage both as to the form 
and body of their thought, and that 
they are gathering the golden grains 
of a wider and richer harvest. 

"And slowly answered Arthur from the 
barge : 
'The old orderchangeth, yielding place 
to new.'" 

284 



MAR 1 1905 






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